And This, the Plighted Vow
by Machae
Summary: A god is summoned, others are about to find themselves challenged. Interference isn’t appreciated, but happens nonetheless. And if time does not heal all, blood will. [YGOxYYH crossover]
1. Pallor

**Author's Note:** As a general rule, we roughly settled for the Yu-Gi-Oh anime canon as well as certain manga adaptations; also, the events of the fic would be placed somewhere around those of the Yu-Gi-Oh episode 200, and in Yuu Yuu Hakusho time interval between the invitations and the actual Dark Tournament.

Rating may vary in later chapters, and enemies of such, beware the slashy hints! The three clowns who wrote this like to think they treated the subject with enough elegance to allow for non-pairing readers to enjoy this, in any case.

A more detailed author's note concerning several of the references and concepts used in the following can be found at the end.

-

**Small Disclaimer:** The title is something we can't lay claim to – we'll gladly leave the laurels to the kind master, Poe. The quotes marked as such are from the Book of the Dead. All recognizable characters and concepts belong to their respective creators and the adjacent organizations associated with them.

-

**Hail, Unas, thy two jaws are unlocked. Hail, Unas, the two gods have opened thy mouth.**

-

**The King of Dust and Shadows **

-

The main difference between kidnapping and theft, as Bakura saw it, was that in one case the object had to be knocked out, whereas in the other there was no such need. Then there was also the fact that kids were often not guarded quite as well as family heirlooms. Though considering how valuable and precious this child was to one of the most influential people in the industry, the abduction really should have been more difficult. On the other hand, it was of advantage to him, even if Bakura did feel slightly cheated by the ease with which he infiltrated Kaiba Corp., by-passed the guards and other security devices, hijacked a camera, and finally escaped to the rooftop. Of course, it might have been more of a challenge if Kaiba had deigned to include magical traps and curses, but since he did not believe in such 'nonsense'…

Bakura snorted, running a thumb over his deck.

Well, that would soon change.

"Mokuba!"

Very soon. But for now… eyes shining bright with anticipation, Bakura let go of the little pest. Gravity did the rest and delivered him right into Kaiba's arms.

It was plain that the priest was not amused as he caught his brother. Tch, absolutely no sense of humour – a trait shared by both him and the Pharaoh. 'Rob and drop' was one of Bakura's favourite manoeuvres. He'd done it in the past, stealing a body and dropping it at the feet of a relative or, as in this case, into his arms. It presented a very, ah, _cute_ picture.

"I've been waiting for you, Director."

If there was one redeeming quality in Kaiba, it was his vengeful nature - something that Bakura understood only all to well. Unfortunately, Kaiba was also very predictable and not all too original with his threats. It was so very -

"Duel!"

- tiresome. Well, seemed like he was finished now. Finally.

Calling upon the powers of his Ring, he watched Kaiba tense. It seemed as if the one-time priest was not as unaware of these things as he would like everyone, including himself, to believe.

"Don't act so surprised. You experienced this game 3000 years ago, after all."

And of course, Kaiba refused to believe him, but Bakura had other tricks up his sleeve. In the meantime…

"I fuse Headless Knight and Dead Spirit of the Earl to summon Dead Spirit of the Duke!"

The duel was challenging as could be expected, for Kaiba was a champion, after all. Naturally, he lacked the experience Bakura had gathered over the last millennia and even as Kaiba summoned his famous Dragon – and wasn't she such a beauty? So powerful, the only monster able to defeat a god –, he played right into Bakura's hands. Diabound really was a useful and, above all else, _resourceful_ creature. A loyal servant to his master, Bakura, The King of Thieves.

There was a reason why he carried that title: to say that Bakura was good would do him an injustice. He was the best and he planed to prove it again tonight, for as soon as Diabound defeated the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, her power and abilities would be absorbed, making his own monster all but invincible; perhaps enough so to take on the Pharaoh's deck.

"Horrible Burst Stream!"

Bakura frowned as his life points went down, the Rules of the Shadow Game dictating that it should take rather a big chunk out of his energy. Time to end this. This body would need a while to recuperate, and knowing his host, Bakura was certain the boy wouldn't do the intelligent thing and stay at home instead of going to that damned school of his.

Speaking of which, the sun was about to rise. Fitting, for Diabound rose, as well - and destroyed the Dragon.

Bakura chuckled. Well, his task was complete; now he could–

"Blue-Eyes is immortal. Magic card, Raise Dead!"

What the hell? He started as an energy, so incredibly strong it stole his breath, swept over the duelling arena.

_Could it be…?_ But Kaiba looked as surprised as he was. The priest needn't be aware, though, even if it _was_ his own doing. It might have been done on a subconscious level.

Then again, there was this probing at the back of his mind. No, not a probing. More like a full assault; it almost felt like the Rod was involved but, then, Kaiba didn't have it - and the power level! Even if he had a way of tapping the Rod's abilities, it couldn't have come from Kaiba alone.

However, if the _dragon_ …

Bakura's eyes narrowed. Well, well. _Now_ she had decided to save her master… tch, he had not time for this.

While the priest sputtered, affronted that Bakura would simply stop the duel, he rummaged in the pocket of his coat, feeling for a round-ish shape. Ah, _there_. The Millennium Eye. As he threw the item to Kaiba, he was a little sad to see it go. It _had_ made such a nice souvenir; and so tasty, too. The blood, a left-over from Pegasus, had had such a lovely flavour. Sinful. Wicked. Deliciousss.

"What!" Kaiba stared at the Eye, which he seemed to have caught hold of reflexively.

"It's an invitation, Director, to the ultimate Dark Game."

Kaiba sneered. "I'm not interested in that occult crap."

_Of course_ he wasn't. But even if he refused to acknowledge this, there was always one thing that Kaiba was ever so curious about. Having a back-up plan really paid out.

"You might not be interested in it, but I'm sure you want to know more about your connection with Blue-Eyes."

Before Kaiba could do so much as blink, Bakura had disappeared. A nice exit, he reflected, climbing down the fire ladder at the outside of the building; not overly dramatic but Diabound's Spiral Wave had added a nice touch.

Huh. On towards his host's flat then, and the bed, or wherever Ryo would decide to park _their_ body. Not that it mattered much to him, Bakura's job was done for the day.

-

**I am the great One, son of the great One; I am Fire, the son of Fire, to whom was given his head after it had been cut off...**

-

**The Sleeper in Waking**

-

Come play with me, my newfound friend, stillborn child of feverish wantings and told-untold ambitions – wanton beat and wanton heart, the chords to be ripped from open throats, devoured - I'll make you, break you, _will_ you true, offer blessings, seduce you anew – such is the style of it, this Makai game, such is the style of war paints on untainted ceramics.

Don't _break_.

Don't falter.

Clap.

The rhyme goes like this:

_Epur si muove, the wheel of pain, and then the wheel of fortune._

_Round and round, the merry hound, its eyes appraising torture…_

Makai chanting, Ningenkai words, the beat reigns supreme. We clap to it, clap to the air, don't falter, don't break. Children's game, Ningenkai game, clap and clap and clap to the words, don't falter, don't break. Play with me, my newfound friend, each slash and each bite forsaking a glint of expectation.

You wore the cloth of night and blood, but a secret now, a secret for newfound friends and endless courtships, a secret for would be masters. Black is blood and blood is dirt, and snow hides dirt, snow does not erase it.

But fire kills.

The one tiding, so onerous: don't falter, don't---

Listen. Clap and _listen_:

_Laying claim to the kill, the hound and its game, caught and held and caught and held and-_

Silent and still.

_Caught?_

He lies silent.

_When was it…_

And still.

_Caught…?_  
He does not heed the bare tremble of soft, soft lips. A summon. _Silent._

_Was it ever…_

He does not waver in his touch, so cruel, so kind, watching, waiting, we burn. _ And still_.  
_…caught…?_

There for hours, there for the night, heeding the beat, when did he begin? _Silent_.

…_and held?_

There for hours, there for the night, screams in an orchestra, a single musician. He does his waiting. _And still_.

_Round and round and caught and held and_ - stop.

Come dawns, you clap, come nightfall, you clap, come the material finitude, you clap to the hound and its prey and the hunt. This is the game. Your answer?

…unwilled, there can be only one.

_Silent._

Crushed to the floor, in each bone an aching. His time shall come.

Clap and clap and clap and don't falter, don't break, don't-_  
And still._

"I shall only suffer absolute devotion or absolute betrayal."

A summon.

…and the answer?

"_It lives_," say the priests as their lips breeze over open hands, meaning to kiss the rings on his fingers.

"_It lives_," says the now-so-fortunate company, singing their praises in sheer adoration.

"It's dead, you fools," I say, the Fool of the Deck, because this is the summon caster, and his every fibre is being drained him with the mercy of a still hungering parasite, and he _claps_.

Fire that kills, fire denied.

…we stopped clapping.

_Silent._

_And still._

_And claimed._

This body knows no pain, no gain, no game. No summon. No casting.

- and you watch and you sing and you clap, and you wait –

_A brush of energy._

_A chance._

- no faltering, no breaking, no rhythm, no rhyme, no summon, no answer, no –

_I have no memory._

There can be no claim.

_Claim what you can catch._

Falter.

Break.

_Run._

-

**His heart obeyeth him, he is the lord thereof, it is in his body, and it shall never fall away therefrom.**

**-**

**The Puppet on Past's Strings**

**-**

Thunder illuminated the office on one of the upper floors of the Kaiba Corporation building where Seto Kaiba was going over various statistics that, to the normal eye, would seem incomprehensible. Contrary to popular belief, he didn't enjoy this sort of work, but it _was_ calming, in some strange fashion - probably because it was something concrete and _real_, and it kept his mind away from the recent unnatural events that, inevitably, had involved him. These were no prophecies and destinies; just numbers and graphics.

As another lightning bolt flashed outside, Seto was suddenly very grateful for the place's choice of soundproof windows. His company still hadn't fully recovered from the ... Paradias fiasco. It wasn't a surprise, really. Had Seto been in his sponsor's shoes, he would have immediately cancelled any contract with a company that had been almost taken over twice in less than a month by two low-profile organizations - one of which American. Judging from Siegfried von Schroeder's moves via the Industrial Illusions, he almost expected the man to either imitate his formal commercial conduct or hope for a merger. On the flipside, though, the Grand Prix in the States had cleared the pathway for expansion beyond Kaiba Land and miscellaneous contracts.

Just as he was browsing the stocks for another company working on similar holographic technologies, the electricity in his office went out.

He frowned, letting his eyes get used to the sudden darkness: blackouts weren't supposed to be possible where he lay, what with the innumerable emergency generators he had installed almost everywhere. He had personally ensured that those were highly functional, no more than a month ago. Could bugs or generic system errors have been at fault? No, not likely - this was just plain incompetence on the supervisor's part, and he would be firing Kawakita if he didn't solve the problem, preferably in the next five minutes. Or maybe this was that foreigner's, Gaburieru's shift - if so, the man could be sure to take the first plane right back to New York.

He gritted his teeth and tried to contact his secretary, but the phone line conspicuously dead. ("What the...!") Sabotage. The American and Ueno (the head of security) were both going to be fired - if this was anything worse than a simple robbery, then into high space on one of Gozaburou's old rocket launchers.

_Or_ - the remaining possibility which he had yet to consider: the power outing could have been limited to his office. ( Even stranger, since he hadn't informed anyone he would be using this room in particular, and the mere reason why there were a multitude of unused offices on the upper floor was that Kaiba always insisted to do most of the work himself, instead of relying on potentially treacherous subalterns).

The computer screen flashed - Seto drew back slightly as his eyes tried to readjust to the light - and the screen-image buzzed for a few seconds before focusing on the face of one of the more strange participants in the Battle Ship stage of his last tournament in Japan. (Wrong, Seto thought with vague amusement, there hadn't been any participant there that hadn't been strange. He didn't count the mutt by default.)

"Yo, Director - thanks for working overtime!"

"You are - _Bakura_." Seto stated, remembering his name. This one used an occult deck based on demon main-type monsters and an Ouija Board combination, but had all the same lost to Yuugi upon his summon of 'The Saint Dragon of Osiris'. If rumours served, had afterward been blasted out of existence by Malik Ishtar's God Card.

Bakura's smirk widened somewhat (Kaiba had the eerie feeling that he could either hear or see him or both, although that was improbable at best) and he stepped back. Seto recognised the roof of the building, though how he had managed getting out there was beyond him. The dangling old pendant also caught his attention for a brief moment, but-

Kaiba went deathly pale.

"Mokuba!"

Bakura held the limp figure of his brother by the scruff of his shirt almost carelessly.

"Don't worry, he's just unconscious," he mentioned casually, gaze mocking, before throwing him to the side.

How dare he!

"You-" No, he had to calm himself, this was a game, he should _see_ it as a game (Gozaburou had unintentionally taught him that, one of the man's few useful lessons).

"What do you want?" It was only after asking that he - yet again- realised that he probably couldn't be heard; he glared at the screen instead.

"Oh nothing much. I would simply like for us to play a Dark Game - let's duel, _great_ Seto Kaiba," Bakura cackled like a madman (an increasing probability). The screen went blank, but the echo of that shrill laughter lingered in the office.

Seto gritted his teeth. Adding offence to injury. _Nobody_ had the right to call him by his first name. It was ridiculous how Bakura had managed to infuriate him in less than two minutes. He stood, clutching the side of the desk and wrenching the suitcase holding his deck out of one of the drawers. In a matter of minutes he had changed into his duelling trench coat and was striding towards the elevator through the dark hallways.

Flipping open a small computer pad on the side of the automatic doors, he typed the activation code to the elevator's emergency generator, a distinct unit with no real connection to the other means of energy supply. As he had expected, it activated; he stepped in.

There were only three levels to the roof, so Seto used the time to fixate his Duel Disk and shuffle his deck. He was ready by the time the doors slid open again.

…he wasn't prepared for an armful of Mokuba, however; the boy far too pale in his grasp –

"Mokuba!" Seto quickly checked his vital signs and ascertained that his kidnapper hadn't lied.

Bakura would pay.

"I've been waiting, Director." The words reeked of irony, accompanied by a light 'tsk tsk'. "Are you ready for the Dark Game?"

Seto set Mokuba down gently, then turned.

"A game, you say?" He had been right - he narrowed his eye. "Your luck runs out here! Don't think you're going to leave unharmed!"

Bakura chuckled darkly.

Kaiba made a few threatening steps forward, stepping into a duelling pose almost unconsciously.

"You're going to regret this." As his Duel Disk snapped into place, the other followed suit, still smirking.

"Duel!"

Kaiba drew the customary five cards (_Perfect_, he thought, with a glance towards them) when he felt something gather around him. What was this painful feeling…? He looked around, seeing black mist thicken - and tensed.

"Don't act so surprised. You experienced this game 3000 years ago, after all."

Kaiba raised his eyebrows in annoyance.

"Three-thousand years ago?"

_Ridiculous_.

"I look towards the future. The past is only made meaningful by the victory of today." And _nothing_ else. He was the wrong person to share these imbecilic stories with.

"If you want someone to tell these meaningless things, go find Yuugi."

Bakura laughed, and Seto grimaced - the insane little sound seemed to be a characteristic feature.

"Yes, Yuugi is also going to join the Dark Game."

"What!"

A smirk.

"Draw!"

For all his other failingshis opponent had managed to summon a 2000 ATK fusion-monster by the end of his turn, and Kaiba supposed that If he was going to use Dark Necrophia again, it was an excellent way to get rid of two of the three necessary monsters required to call it. The Dead Spirit of the Duke alone, if not defended by magic or traps cards was frankly unimpressive. Even more unimpressive, however, he thought with disgust, was the fact that it couldn't be destroyed in battle - but, by the second round, its continued presence was taking a hefty toll on its user's life points.

Bakura got rid of it in his turn, using it to call on a monster that was weak as far as ATK was concerned, but possibly interesting in terms of other abilities - it managed to destroy his Blood Vorse. Kaiba drew exactly the card he needed in his turn - triumphantly, called it:

"I summon Lord of Dragons!"And as long as it remained on the field, she would be invincible.

Bakura's smirk (which had subsided when his first creature had eaten almost a quarter of his life points) returned full force.

"And I activate the Flute of Summoning Dragon from my hand!" he continued.

Yes, now it was time to summon it - _her_. The card that would bring him victory, his beloved-

"Come out, my strongest, lovely servant, Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"

He almost felt like laughing, in sweet victory as the eruption of bright light announced _her_ arrival. It was such _joy-_

(_Pulse_)

- a sudden pain flared in the back of his mind - what was happening? His eyes widened as old, old images resurfaced-

(_Pulse_)

- a dry plateau, covered in dust and sand. He - no - _someone_ with darker complexion and a faint resemblance - was kneeling in front of a tablet, odd clothing hanging limply on his form - almost like the corpse he cradled in his arms.

- then _something_ shifted and the pale girl's face that was suddenly so close that Seto almost felt the phantom sentation of her white hair brushing against his face.

And in front of him a tablet, with a carving of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

(_Pulse_)

What - what had _that_ been? An illusion? Caused by the strange black mist, perhaps? But this wasn't the first time it had happened - the _familiar painful feeling._ He clutched his head as the memory of the duel against Yuugi on the Alcatraz Tower resurfaced.

(_Pulse_)

Blinding light, then - and the sensation of spiralling down through space_ (and time)_. He remembered Yuugi falling beside him, screaming (or was it he who had been screaming?) - And _falling_-

- then it had stopped. Yuugi's Puzzle had been glowing; a golden eye bright on his forehead, the air around him thick with _(darkness) _a black mist covering the ancient city in its ruin. In the distance, he had seen Osiris and Obelisk frozen in stone.

"This painful feeling..." Yuugi had intoned, before space had folded twice before they had found themselves in a cavernous room where their darker-skinned reflections faced off in a mirror-image of the duel they had been fighting just minutes ago and then would be moments after.

(_Pulse_)

The real Yuugi who had been floating beside him vanished as the memory continued in a way Seto distinctly remembered it hadn't - his look-alike ordered the Blue-Eyes to attack.

(_Pulse_)

Kaiba found himself struggling to get out of the tight dark place. His gaze wandered to the other Yuu- to the _Pharaoh_. Mahaado's Ka, mirrorring _his Highness_ defiant pose, starred him with disapproval - not that he expected anything else from the fool, as he would never understand the power of the true God of Darkness, Zork. He would be the new Pharaoh, yes, just like his Father had wished it, his father...

The White Dragon, the God he was to use was not reacting. "Attack!"

She turned her head back towards him, giving him a look full of - Set stumbled a few steps back. _Surely not--!_

(_Pulse_)

He gasped for breath as he felt some control returning to his limbs. The Blue-Eyes was _(seemed to be)_ staring at him, into his very core. But - _impossible_. It _(she)_ was only a hologram-

-no, wrong. No hologram, this; his pride and soul, the strongest monster. But she wasn't a part of _reality_-

Had that image been real? Breathe in, breathe out. His logical mind protested against the notion, but –

It _must_ have been real, as all things tied unto it.

"What's wrong?" Bakura asked haughtily. "Your turn."

Seto broke the line of his thoughts. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mokuba lying on the cold floor. He clutched his fist. This wasn't the time to contemplate such meaningless things - defeating this opponent came first and foremost, and he had to do it quickly.

"Horrible Burst Stream!"

Predictably, Bakura defended himself, Kaiba noticed with no little irritation. Bakura used his advantage to reduce his Blue-Eyes attack to an unmentionable, worthless amount. He _would_ pay dearly.

With the help of a certain magic-card, he drew three cards - two of which were Blue-Eyes, he thought with satisfaction.

"I activate Call of the Haunted to summon Blood Vorse from the graveyard, in defence mode. Then I sacrifice Blood Vorse and the Blue-Eyes to summon-" He glanced to his dragon for a moment, and her weakness sickened him. No matter, she would be reborn in a mere few seconds.

"Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"

Even his rival seemed vaguely impressed by his move. It was the only sensible thing to do - after all, of what worth would a crippled monster be to him? Bakura didn't have the skill to defeat her permanently.

"My Blue-Eyes will not be destroyed by someone like you! Horrible Burst Stream!"

Kaiba savoured Bakura's look of sheer anger as the hologram shattered..

"Not good enough!" Two trap cards: the first to bring Diabound back to the field, the second to power it up by half his Blue-Eyes' ATK point - '_Not good enough_' - the words replayed in Seto's mind.

"Go Diabound! Death Spiral!"

"My Blue-Eyes is immortal!" Laughter. "Activate magic card Raise Dead!"

The sun had risen in the meanwhile and had started to dispel the shadows around them. No evidence of last night's storm lingered on, and while Kaiba didn't care, Bakura apparently did.

"We'll have to finish this duel some other time, Kaiba!"

"_What_! Are you abandoning the duel!"

Bakura gave him a bland look, before searching for something in his coat. "I'll be soon going on a journey. I'll leave this to you!" An object was tossed to him - he caught it with a gasp. Pegasus' Eye…

Kaiba clenched his fist around it. A trick, then; it had never been about this game, but about the game to come, a game in which he hadn't any interest and in which he would not participate, whether he was invited or not. He told him that.

"You might not be interested in it, but I'm sure you want to know more about your connection with Blue-Eyes," Bakura bit back.

Kaiba glanced at the dragon beside him. She was beautiful, bathed in the sunlight.

"Me and… Blue-Eyes?"

Then suddenly Diabound Carnel threw his Death Spiral, filling the makeshift arena with a blinding light. Seto didn't pause to ponder the absence of a direct order.

When he regained his sight, Bakura had already disappeared and Mokuba was waking up - and though the feel of warm gold evoked a distant image of blood and pain, it felt very right in his hand.

**-**

**He is the Being who cannot be known, and he is more hidden than all the gods.**

**-**

**The Key To Greatness**

**-**

Sunlight poured through the window of Yuugi's bedroom, casting its light over the shadowed corners. The spirit of the Pharaoh was leaning against the mirror, which failed to reflect his countenance as he kept a silent watch over the young boy's sleep, a distant expression on his face.

The Puzzle had reacted strangely to something. The - _pulse_ (for lack of a better word) wasn't strong enough to wake Yuugi, but he, as the Millennium Item's spirit, felt each tiny shift of the power in it. And it was - _alarming_. He didn't remember having ever felt something like this before, though, on the other hand, his memories weren't exactly ... present. He frowned. That wasn't quite right.

Yami no Yuugi unconsciously turned to look towards the window.

His memories were _there_. Locked away in the depths of his mind, beyond innumerable doors and strange corridors, hidden somewhere in the maze of his mind. He just had to find them. He just had to find the right door, and his partner had promised to would help him in this endeavour. Inclining his head slightly towards him again, the other Yuugi smiled. There was hope - Yuugi had made sure he saw that.

Yuugi, however, didn't notice him (was he that used to him?) as he was visibly struggling to wake up. The alarm clock had stopped ringing some while ago. Yami no Yuugi supposed he deserved the sleep he'd got, after the ... _escapade_ with the dark Bakura last night.

Feeling his back stiffen (was he actually feeling it? Or was it an afterimage of a feeling he'd had in the past?), he walked over to the window. Something in him urged him to open it, but he knew his hand would go right through the handle. What did mornings feel like? He only ever remembered feeling the excitement, rush, anger and passion of the Games, Yuugi's kindness and trust - but all these in a foreign body, with a foreign name.

He wanted _himself_ back.

He leaned his cheek against the window, trying to imagine its cold, smooth surface...

_No matter the cost._

"Yuugi!" Someone knocked loudly on the door. The former Pharaoh backed away from the window and sat down at the desk, figuring it to be somewhat more of a ... conventional position.

"Are you up already? You're going to be late!" His mother - no, wrong, _Yuugi's_ mother. It was so (strange? foreign?) _annoying_ to have Yuugi's feelings and thoughts flowing so freely into him - the boy's (another person's) essence flowing so freely into him. The Spirit chased the thought from his mind: it would do him no good to pay it too much mind.

His host groaned. "I'm awake." Stretching (and the he could swear he heard a few popping sounds), he stood up; Yami felt the other's dizziness for standing up so suddenly course through him for a moment.

_(Only a moment) _

He enjoyed the feeling, in an odd way.

The spirit watched with vague amusement as Yuugi rummaged for his clothes, his movements expectedly sluggish, tripping at one point over the bag in which they had stuffed the Millennium Items some nights ago. When Yuugi made to pick himself up (with what almost sounded like a muffled swear) -

He didn't manage it.

Instead, his other self stared transfixed at the bag, frozen in a position somewhere between lying over it and trying to come to his feet. Yami no Yuugi jumped up and enforced their link. It was still there but... something froze him in his place; he could hear a soft buzz in his ears, and amidst it-

(_Beat_. Beat. _Beat_.)

- his partner's heartbeat. Yuugi's mind was completely clear of thoughts.

The boy's hand was moving, reaching for the bag. His eyes were alight with a strange fire-

Then-

-it passed.

"Aibou!" called the spirit, fading, only to reappear beside him the small boy.

Yuugi blinked and blushed, before straightening. "I'm sorry!"

He frowned - Was he all right?

"Uh, yeah. I just spaced out for bit..." (What was that dark ... feeling ... _pull_…) He shook his head.

"Dark pull?"

Yuugi gave him a bewildered look, before remembering their bond (he chose not to bring to mind too often just how close their connection was). Oh. "I... um?" Yuugi sat down on the bed, cross-legged. "That's what it felt like..."

The spirit stepped back a bit, trying to sort his thoughts (Was this similar to what he had felt at sunrise? But in such a short span of time?)

Mou hitori no boku? What happened?

"I'm not sure," he said after a few moments, so quietly that Yuugi had to strain to hear it. The Other Yuugi heard the familiar echo of his own voice through the link - for his partner's sake only, he raised his voice: "The Puzzle was reacting to something."

He started to pace. "I don't remembering it doing this for all the time I've been with you. I mean, it's reacted before, when there was a game or in the presence of another Item - but this was too soft. And too clear."

Yuugi frowned. _He's contradicting himself.._

_It seems I am. But the timing..._

_Yes, the ultimate Shadow Game is starting soon. Mou hitori no boku?_

"I don't know what the powers of the Puzzle are. I don't remember. All I know is that something is not right." He frowned, running a hand through his spiky hair.

Yuugi cupped the Puzzle in his hands. _Foreboding._ That was the feeling it was giving off. He looked at the spirit.

_I don't know, aibou,_ I don't know.

_It's no use to worry - not when we yet don't know what this is about. _Yuugi smiled lightly, _Worrying only makes us afraid of what we have to face. Don't worry, mou hitori no boku._

"Whatever it is, we'll get through. We always have, after all, haven't we?"

Yami no Yuugi stopped pacing, but didn't look towards Yuugi. He didn't need to. The bond told him all he had to know.

"And if worse comes to worst, we'll always have our friends to rely on!" Yuugi added, standing up and gathering his school uniform (which he had dropped upon his initial tripping over the bag).

"You're right, aibou."

A few moments passed, filled only with the rustling of clothes and the distant hum of idle conversation downstairs.

_It must have been very lonely in the Puzzle,_ Yami no Yuugi heard Yuugi muse.

_Don't._

_What?_

_I don't want you burdening your thoughts with it, aibou. Please._

Yuugi blushed. "Sorry."

Luckily, Yuugi's mother called again, breaking the awkward moment; Yuugi, in turn, glanced at the clock - and yelped -_ I'm going to be _so_ late. _He grabbed his bag, running out of the room, and Yami no Yuugi saw this as his cue pull himself back into the Puzzle.

-

Some twenty minutes later (which had his thoughts filled with variations of 'faster', 'I'm too slow' and phantom cramps in his lungs), he resurfaced.

Yuugi's upper body was slumped on his desk, head tilted to the side.

"You're five minutes early, aibou," stated Yami no Yuugi, floating behind Yuugi who buried his head under his hands, making him chuckle lightly.

_Just _what_ is so amusing? It's so early!_

"Don't sulk, aibou, it doesn't become you," he chided, before fading out of view and settling himself to watch from behind Yuugi's eyes.

"Morning, Yuugi!" called Jounouchi's chipper voice.

Yuugi raised his head._ Eaaarlyyyy!_

The other Yuugi could, suffice to say, hear his partner's thoughts perfectly from his position.

"Good morning, Jounouchi..."

"You look like a zombie - didn't sleep?"

Yami no Yuugi smirked. Yuugi didn't. "Well, um, many things happened last night..."

_You do realise how wrong that sounds, aibou?_

Jounouchi winked. "Really?"

"Yeah," Yuugi said without thinking. Yami no Yuugi chortled - Yuugi caught his thoughts and blushed. "Not like that!" (But this blush was nothing like the one Yuugi sported a minute later when Jounouchi told him he wanted his video back.)

Anzu arrived a few moments later, followed by Honda and Bakura. Bakura's greeting was the least enthusiastic, the other Yuugi noticed. Or had _Yuugi_ noticed? It didn't matter.

"Hey, Bakura! You didn't sleep either, did you?" Jounouchi asked.

"Um... I felt tired when I woke up," Bakura said, rubbing his eyes; he gave them a strange, tired smile and went to his desk.

Jounouchi blinked at him. "Odd guy." Anzu swatted him over the head for the comment. Yuugi exchanged an amused smile with Honda when Jounouchi complained.

"Anyway..." Anzu started, looking at him expectantly. "What happens now?"

"Yeah," Jounouchi continued. "You've got the three God Cards and a bunch of Millennium Items. Isn't it about time to get the Other Yuugi's memories back?"

Yuugi shifted uncomfortably; Yami no Yuugi bit his lip - or rather, Yuugi's lip.

"Are we sure that's all we need to get them? I mean, it's just too simple," Honda stated.

"Why don't we go check it out at museum?" Jounouchi asked.

"Remember what happened last time?"

They all shuddered.

"Well, great idea, but - the exhibit's over. Isis Ishtar took it back to Egypt at some point during our stay in America," Anzu said.

Yami no Yuugi knew that, and, by extension, Yuugi did too – of course they knew _where_ the game was to be played (there was only one logical conclusion...). They also knew that the Ishtars would show them the way once there, as demanded by their duty. Yami no Yuugi both feared and longed the return to his homeland.

"We need to go to Egypt."

The three stared at him – at _them_.

-

**The place of bondage is opened, that which was shut is opened; the place of bondage is opened unto my soul… **

-

**The Keeper of No Gates**

-

Stigmata on thought and sight – past sins now forgotten; all was for Rastaltan, once come the night.

When he was young, he would smile for silver. They had placed a load of them in his greedy, feverish hands, they had unlaced his chemise, kissed his closed eyes, and they had said, "Smile for us."

Coins could be worthless.

But hunger killed.

Those days were lost to the Makai, and now he had the veils to mask the decadence, and then the dagger. White over hair, white over skin, white and nothingness, only the dance and the bindings of _cannabis sativa_ - a cautious seduction.

The wave of sick pleasure, white pleasure, the blessing of root and leaf and smoke and sensation. Then he was standing, somehow, waving around and fighting the dance. He'd almost mastered the haze and how to walk unaffected, how to ignore the precious lights and the substance's ruling.

He had to go to Kurama. Had to tell him, had to explain how perfectly _alive_ he felt because of this – how these sensorial stimuli too were something to be dominated, controlled, just a new sort of power and a feeble passage to _that_ plane that Rastaltan so favoured.

But not now.

Now, the hunt. The signature had placed its greeting early on: half-human, half-demon, his for the taking. A pity for the innocent life, but this blood, he yearned for.

Too many humans to intrude by the grace of daylight, but Ningen had inoculated a fear of darkness in their young, and so only the obstinate or the foolish lingered past moon fall, past the Witching Hour, into the woods. This one Hiei searched for, he was no fool, and he had little to fear from humans.

When Hiei roamed the outskirts of the city, he was a different creature: extravagant, poised, enticing, but first and foremost dangerous, and that was what these humans were prone to forget. It was coincidence, perhaps, or simply the strangeness of this world that he should find them quite near by, in the forest too, also lovely, also playing and doing the vile little acts that shadows adored.

He did not mean to draw them out as he passed them by, but he knew it was impossible. And his visible circumstances already had many gazing onto him enviously: no parents, no restrictions, only a succession of benign favours curried with whatever god had deserted them and found a truer prophet in pale eyes and pale skin and limbs lacking their life.

They were young, and they were human, and they thought he was human too, and a _pretty_ catch.

"Pretty birdie, don't you wanna have a little fun?"

"Come on, don't be mean to us, pretty birdie…"

They leered his way and offered small, kind suggestions that had little to do with ambition and dignity, or character, and far more with the light sway of hips and doe eyes and an impossibly narrow waist – and then they followed him, fumbling, whistling, calling on the great Baron Samedi for protection and wisdom and altogether charm. Oh, if they only _knew_…

But Hiei did. He knew these Ningen games, and he knew these Ningen wantings.

"We'll make it worth your while!"

There were rules there, as in all else. Obeisance was everything – and he had been obedient, for Koenma had had no reason to call him out throughout his entire stay; but the intent would also have to be clear, and of own volition – and so he did them the only honour he could fathom and waited for-

A hand on his waist.

"Come sing us a _pretty_ tune, _pretty_ little bird…"

"Pretty lady, give us a kiss!"

So be it: he let himself fall into their hands, corpse's pallor, warm with sin.

If time stood still, this would be perfect: wanted, baited, trapped by hungry eyes and hungrier invitations. They looked, they wanted to touch. But time did not indulge.

They were young, bodies thinned by vice, vice fed from the cigarettes rolled in haste and of curious making, though similar smell: marijuana, hashish, something equally potent that thrilled the air; their ki was a masquerade of constancy and fluctuation: energy spiked by the smell of death and its woes. Human, with a singular exception, and it was outrageous how easily Hiei would cling to him.

_He_ knew.

"You smell of home..." This one's broken whisper was a torrent against bared skin, but Hiei _looked_ for a name, and the name found him as no more than an impression of _this_ body and its childhood denied and then an early adolescence spent in the ill company of maudlin books and less pragmatic dear friends – and then ruin. _Daisuke_, or so the humans had styled him.

"A smile, pretty lady? Or a sweet secret, then?" This one's hands were daring; he must have known how Hiei shared his secret, Hiei who was not at all weak, and who would make such an auspicious patron for a half-breed. Hiei, who only craved his blood.

"No secret… a kindness." For Hiei could be kind too, and so he allowed the teeth and the lips and the hold on his throat, the sparkle of devilish intention. To _Daisuke_, a secret whispered in eager ears: "You're already dying."

Mild interest. "Heh… how do you know?"

Hiei's voice was hoarse, but he had to say it. "This one knows. This one sees…" A tap to his forehead, to the joy behind the white band – and the reward in Daisuke's gasp of recognition. The hold strengthened, but a pulse of ki heralded the jungle law, and this Daisuke submitted to the prospect of death in early resignation. Jagan, yes, Makai's gift to the terribly wicked. There could be no escaping it. Hiei doubted there was a need, but he consoled him all the same, in the only way he knew. Despise a tyrant, honour an enemy, but pity a sacrifice:

"It's rotting in you, as it is. Whatever body you took… it was already meant to die." He felt this Daisuke's energy now, not human in its finery, terribly strange. Another, the trueborn name: Adassarai, or at least, he conceded, the phonetics granted by the Makai trading dialects that Hiei spoke, which did not include the tribal fares of shape-shifters.

The rest was, as they say, history. No, Adassarai would not resent the course of things, for he did not have the strength, and his kind had been taught to worship the Jagan and the mighty Rastaltan. No, he had not seen other demons for his twenty years in this life; he was anxious to have been found by Hiei before his human demise. No, the possession had not been forced, but swift and upon an already decaying body. Yes, he would do as Hiei – as _Rastaltan_ asked.

But this one too had questions.

Had Hiei come for him in particular? Had he expected such a finding? Adassarai had a very special wish – and wouldn't Hiei please grant it?

He had no answer, but somehow Hiei found himself allowing the bites and the sighs and the touch and he related the whole story to this first come, drawn on by eager questions or obscene remarks or sanctions of admiration. He told them, the human boys, in slow word, how he intended to kill their mate. It was not a confession, no regret, no choice.

It was Adassarai who ushered them away, in Daisuke's voice, and with Jagan induced somnolence. The Ningen did not argue; they left in a haste.

Another kiss, and Hiei pulled back, his eyes on _Daisuke's_ lips and the sickening ki, and the _blood_ beneath them. "Brother, this has nothing to do with you. But Reikai watches, and _their_ sort has feeble blood for Rastaltan's taste." No humans would satiate Rastaltan. It was known.

Both of them soft and human looking, if Hiei much younger, and in a body of his own; both finding the other intimately familiar in a brave new world, if seldom kind; both knowledgeable of Makai and her call, and seeking some escape in foreign brews and distinct aromas.

They had so much in common; they couldn't be more unlike.

When Hiei brought down the blade through the heart of the half-ningen, half-demon, all nothing but putrefaction – when Hiei ended yet another miserable existence, he liked to think he was being kind.

-

All gestures were warnings to be heeded.

It began one afternoon as he wandered the Free Cities after a three-day incursion to the west of Anu'manah. He hadn't Kurama's qualms, nor his human propensity, and so it was for Koenma to arrange the kill and for Hiei to see to the deed. He never met his eyes when he was whispered the order, and it was their understanding that just as the princeling would not remark on the prolonged delay - just as he would ignore the little straying from boundaries – just as he would never consider Yukina's right to know of her brother's circumstances - Hiei too would keep his silence and never remind him of what needed be done to maintain Reikai's fickle balance.

With boyish glee, he examined the trinkets on display: gems and silvers and blades – polished horns, young Master? This beauty, forged in the black pits? This dagger, yes, this very one! It served Raizen once, wouldn't its cut speak for the young Master from now on?

They would sell their souls in the commerce of the Free Cities, and their tongues would sweeten the deal to such an extent that even Hiei would be in doubt to acquire it. Already, his hands were drowning in metals to be exchanged for a thousand fold their worth in the Ningenkai, and he even carried a pint of highly distilled dreamwine for Kurama's latest whims.

The merchants were many, but there were always those willing to take things beyond attraction and offense and casual drama.

"Have you ever seen something so fierce that it would bring even the unfeeling Koorime to tears?"

Hiei paused by the stall, from habit, if nothing more – though the question was not addressed to him, and curious onlookers found it oddly proper to make way for the bearer of the Jagan.

"Yes, my little master! That is the might of the Holy Beast, the Dark Flame Dragon, Rastaltan, and these are his amulets! Wear them, and you shall vanquish all your enemies! As young and pretty as you are, wouldn't you like a God's protection?"

The highest-ranking nobleman stepped first and raised a hand: "I'll take two! I've sons in the war with Yomi!"

"And I!"

"Good! Good! Rastaltan will guard their sleep and give his bite to their swords!"

"I'll take a dozen! To make the troupe merrier!" The Lord Commander's ruffled voice was still breathless from a run, but he had taken the time to relieve his uniform of the proper insignia. No war in the Free Cities, no memento.

A Tyrraen female great with spawn bit her lips shyly: "And…one for me, if it please my good sir. So that Rastaltan will make this one in my womb a son and good heir to his father."

And it was later, under the omen of golden coins that Hiei could ask at his leisure:

"Tell me more." And then under the tip of sword, for no merchant would part with the secret of his trade, and no true secret was bought but at the expense of blood - "Tell me _everything_."

-

In the end, they told him little, though the tale was indecently simple.

He learned it in his pilgrimage to Ktahal, the frozen fortress of kings; he did not search, but with the knowledge of the name came the tales on every road, the proof, then, small, but there; and then the temples, scattered throughout the Makai like ancient pearls awaiting an oysters' make-believe domestication.

Eleven temples now, and this the twelfth. (Not that Hiei was counting.)

It was to pleading that the old priests answered, and not to oppression – and it was not pleading that Hiei did best, though they kept him on his knees for an obnoxiously long time.

"Rastaltan, the Holy One, the Bringer of All Thirteen Mights." He learned this: it was crude to address him as the "Holy Beast". Offensive. When he asked for such, they meant to cut his tongue, but his fist had plied one's sternum before the blow could land.

"A misunderstanding." Of course.

They did not spare him the theatrics, though he was easily fascinated by what religious emphasis would do to the credulous of nature. "Rastaltan, the Devourer of Worlds! He who was born before times from the Sacred Fires, he who burns the world and swallows the moons at every century's pass, he who has blessed the rule of King Arulah-"

Arulah, that time, Quatranareth earlier, and the Council of Ten before them. He had no god of his own, and so Hiei believed determinedly not in the _god_, but in the power that had bidden its presence. There was no magic, but there were always patterns, and magicians could be _made_, if not born.

That time, and every time, a thought was formed.

-

He mentioned it, at first, in passing.

"Absurd! Can you imagine the amount of energy for such a Summon? Can you? No one metal would do! Only life's blood would pay for this! How will you finish it if you are dead? The Order of Alchemists of Tiamat revealed the calculus to him in cries of indignation. "You mean to capture gods! Rastaltan, who is king among kings!"

There could be no such Summon; they would not suffer such heresy. Hiei would have to leave now, lest his presence incur the god's wrath upon them all.

But Hiei did not leave, and Hiei found what he sought, those as unholy and almost as forbidden as he.

"You would need a metal, yes, something to carry it out. And the blood? Perhaps…wait…but to reach the astral plane, by your formula… An involution of the mind. How can you accomplish _that_ feat?"

But he had this answer too, and he was _beaming_ over Kurama and trying to hold a green-gold-green gaze, and saying, "Cannabis _Sativa_. _Can_ you do it?"

Kurama could do anything.

-

At first it was a tentative smile, and a bashful brush of consciences – Hiei compared it to his Jagan's first taste of another's mind, but he knew it to be a poor match in terms of the wildness and the fire and the passion.

He had to have more – and when he did, it was to the smell of his own charred flesh, delicious and alive and in unthinkable _pain_, but he _was_ Master.

Soon he was standing in Kurama's rooms, and holding a burned arm for display too, like the amulets, like the gems, only it was real, and it was Hiei's.

"I have him, and he has me, and _this_ is their god! Their god lies in my hand. Don't look at me like that, I'm fine! Perfectly fine!"

Moments later he was unbearably sick, throwing up blood, and his meals, and more blood, while Kurama soothed him with milk-of-the-poppy and called him horrible names: "Their god may be lying in _your_ hand, but you're lying on _my_ floor!"

When the dragon's fire came, and with it the fever, Hiei burned and _begged_ for more.

-

A flash – and a thought – and he was here – _finally_ - and whimpering – _slowly_ – and pleading – _softly_ – and he couldn't help it.

Any of it. Each second burned, had been burning since – how many days? Centuries? Millennia? It was an all-encompassing sensation, and he revelled in it, the pain that reminded of absence, the absence that reminded of absolute power detained within a careful fist.

The bond was frail. He did not need the weakening Jagan to notice, or the consuming of his ki, or the reduction of strength to dust. He danced, did they know this? On this world, where Rastaltan and he were one, and now parted – he _danced_.

He had felt the energies not seldom – a drawing of ki, and then something more, an imperfect violation and therefore such a temptation - but Rastaltan within him would stir.

And a little while before, yes, he had felt that too, breathed it, lived it and left it behind. Yet Rastaltan is not as he: it did not forgive; it did not forget.

A few nights ago, Hiei knew, a new era had begun.

And when had it started to go so horribly wrong?

Rastaltan was a desperate cry and a feeble dream and a desire so vivid that it tore him apart. And he didn't know if he wanted to own it, to be it, or to be devoured by it – but in his fondest visions, he'd put all three realms through sword and plunder and place them within Rastaltan's fire. For his return, he would do all this and more.

No time, and no thoughts. Hiei had to _dance_, and he did it with the perdition of self and vanity and will – until finally there were only the formulas around him, and Sygma and Hi and Alpha in between, and circles and drawings, in _old_ Makai tongue on this _new_, human soil. The forest did not care for him as it would for Kurama ; there was no stolen grace as he called onto his fire and burned the incense – true incense, this once – and he let perfumed droplets slip past the circles; some he drank away from rough, calloused hands, some he mixed with the blood of wrist and Jagan.

Metals, now, the grasps of matter: human gold, scattered to the West, Makai silver, and all around was the ministry of coal, which, he knew, he should not have used, for he was Master already, and this was command and not request – but much like all else, he could not help it.

This was despair, he knew. This was weakness.

Half moon flourishing in its ascension – an amplifier of blood and metal alike, though the metal in particular. An odd phase, and a conjuncture with Mars – metal again, but he had brought fair blood, strong if ignoble.

The words now: some sung, some whispered, the majority raw and shredding his throat and marking the clouded mind with the miasmas of Ktahal's Twin Towers. He conjured not the gods, nor the elements, but that which the moon would keep in her sanctuary.

_Only life's blood would pay for this! How will you finish it if you are dead?_

There _was_ a way – there was _always_ a way. Katana steel and wakizashi length and shape-shifter's blood all over it – the life it had taken might pass Koenma's gates under the name of Adassarai, but the shadow he stabbed was Hiei's and within the Summon, that was what mattered, it was the sacrifice of his other self.

It was the greatest game he had ever played.

And the greatest conquest.

For a second, he was not himself.

That second grew to monstrous proportions – a maelstrom of malign intentions, and he was _falling_ into the plane too _fast_, too _deep_, too _far_, too _hot_ –

The Jagan was a pulse and a guide and a failing in his inquiries, the sinister extent of a faltering bond in near suffocation.

He lived – he died – he burned. Forbidden, he would forbid himself again, forbid Rastaltan, forbid this fury of rich impatience and fear and vanity that mirrored one soul within the other.

_Pain_.

It pulsed through him. _Pain_. A voice. More than one. _Pain_. Child's laughter. _Pain_. Then only a stranger's afterthought, lively thief's energy, a sensational corruption for one who already detested the pact.

_Pain_-

Rastaltan…

_pain_ –

Had to have an answer to clever subjugation.

-_pain_.

Denial.

-

He woke to negligence and consternation, to the blood of a weeping Jagan. _Blood_. And pain. And fear.

No glorious return. No completion. The end of a failed Summon. The end of everything, if Hiei would only open his trueborn eyes from their Sativa bewitched stupor.

_Birds fly away, don't they know?_

_Little birdies too. _

_And dragons have such strong wings._

It was no lace, but he clawed at dirt and mud and paints that glittered in the dark light of more blood that still tainted his blade and the corner of impromptu white-now-white-no-longer veils.

The whiteness, Hiei realized. The end of an inexistent purity.

He took a shuddering breath and willed himself as somewhere above this, beyond this, somewhere without pain and where Rastaltan's allegiance was not the coin of the Dark Tournament's survival, of power and life.

"I am _still_ Master..."

This was his truth, his only truth. He could have no other, for it would break him. And now was not the time to hurt again; now he must heal.

He did not want to assess this situation, his damage.

He did not want to think.

He did not want to _be_.

-

**Let not him that would do harm unto me draw nigh unto me. Let me walk through the house of darkness.**

-

**The King No Longer**

-

…_pound_. Pound. POUND. pound. **Pound**. _POUND_.

3x2 – 7y + …

Ryou squinted at the board: _7y +_ many wriggly lines. Might even be 7x and not y…uh. It all started to swim… probably because he was moving, swaying, wasn't he? Or was the earth? No, no earthquake, there wasn't a panic, the teacher wasn't calling for calm, it must be him.

Ryou moved forward, it felt like it anyway, but he was still in his seat, and, boy, wasn't it cold in here! Goosebumps on his arms, a feeling like icy wind caressing his torso, kissing a path down his spine. He was shaking, his _fingers_ were _shaking_ and he was still swaying and cold – but his face was hot, his neck burnt. And the letters and numbers danced like a multitude of leaves in the autumn breeze. Or snow flakes, yes _snow_ flakes, for the chalk was white and they fell down upon a black, tarred road like so many pieces of that noodle soup with the letters his mom had made when he was feeling ill. His legs were freezing now, but he was dressed; it wasn't like in that dream that everyone says is so cliché, about the nakedness in school but he'd never dreamed that. Was he dreaming now? Maybe that was the reason?

Ryou looked down. Nah, wearing clothes, but the floor rose up and…

Had Ryou blinked, he was sure he would have missed it. One moment he was _moving_ down and the floor up, and the next, all was as it should be. No vertigo. No shaking. All was normal save for his tiredness. And the general lack of energy. The Spirit must have stayed up all night.

Ryou sat back in his seat and turned towards the blackboard again. It was odd. He picked up his pen from the desk – when had he dropped it? – and copied the problem. Strange… hadn't they been trying to solve the equation on page 13? This one looked decidedly different. He can't have missed that much, it had only been a few moments… hadn't it? _Hadn't_ it? Ryou checked his watch. Ten minutes left, they'd been right in the middle when he'd last checked. Had the other him taken over?

Ryou looked around cautiously. All present and accounted for. No deadened stares. No figurines. Hm. If he had, there hadn't been any casualties. Or perhaps…

Was Yuugi looking a bit paler than before? Was he throwing strange glances in Ryou's direction? Had the Spirit done something to him? Or maybe it wasn't because of that. Perhaps the earth had indeed moved and he just hadn't noticed that everyone was… no, he was sure it had been him. But if there hadn't been an earthquake, it must have been the Spirit and Yuugi was really looking at him and Jounouchi, too. They all were. The whole class was looking at him! They could see what was inside him, who was inside him. They all could, they all knew. He had to get away. Now. He couldn't bear to have them look at him with pity and fear and anger for it was his fault he wasn't strong enough, couldn't hold the Spirit back.

The Dark Bakura had taken over last night again, a Voice in his head, a Voice he was too weak to fight…

And they saw it in him. They saw the evil that had taken possession of his body. They were shying away. That was good, though. Away with them, lest they get hurt like his friends at his old school, the same he had left because people had _known_, had _looked_ at him as everyone was looking now.  
No. No! Now Anzu was standing up, coming closer. She mustn't. Why was she rising, anyway, had the bell rung already? She wouldn't stand up otherwise, would she? But everything was so silent. The whole class was silent. Not even the teacher was speaking.

Ryou stared at her. She was mouthing something at him. He concentrated on her lips trying to make sense of it… might be his name but he couldn't be sure. And something else… what?

"…u okay? Bakura?"

As if someone had thrown a switch the sound came back on and Ryou started. What was wrong with him?

"Bakura?"

Anzu seemed concerned. Ryou swallowed, then put on a smile.

"I'm fine, Anzu. Really."

She wasn't convinced, that much was obvious but he couldn't tell her more. After all, he didn't know what was going on either.

"If you're sure…?"

"Yes," he said and left.

On the way to the toilet, Ryou's mind was in turmoil and his thoughts kept circling.

So, the Spirit had returned, had done something in the last ten or eleven hours. Something that was making Ryou feel sick and making him deaf, temporarily – at least, Ryou hoped so. But what _had_ he done?

Ryou stopped and retraced his steps. He'd walked past the toilets.

Right, what was it… ah, yes. What had the other him done? Which use had he put Ryou's body to? What would make him feel… oh.

Entering the bathroom, seeing a few of his classmate there smoking – smelling it, actually –, Ryou almost hit himself. Of course! Now that he thought about it, it was so obvious. The Spirit had probably smoked some illegal substance, or swallowed something, or whatever it was one did; and Ryou was experiencing the after-effects.

"Ou!"

"Get out of the way, idiot."

Eyes closed in pain, Ryou edged away from the entrance, rubbing the back of his head, where someone had hit him with the door. Ngh. This really had hurt but there was no blood – always a plus –, so it should be alright.

Ryou finally opened his eyes.

… or maybe not.

He blinked, then blinked again. And again. Ryou rubbed a hand over his eyes, pinched his cheek and blinked again. It was perhaps too much to hope for that there'd been a short-circuit in the electricity system. He turned towards where he remembered the window being: a short-circuit combined with an eclipse.

Ryou wasn't expecting an answer to his unvoiced question and he was actually glad that he didn't get one. He didn't think he could deal with the Spirit now. The other him would probably just laugh at him anyway.

Oh no, oh no, oh great god no. This couldn't be happening. He couldn't be blind. He –

… could see again.

Tiled floor, toilets, students, basins, taps, mirrors. Everything there, clear as day. He twisted around: single stalls… right, he needed a bit of privacy for now. Who knew what would happen next.

Door closed and locked, Ryou sat down on the lid of the toilet and took a few deep breaths. Calm. He needed to be calm. This would pass. He just had to hold out like he'd done before. It wasn't so different from the sudden lapses of memory, the hours he never recalled, the things he never remembered doing. Just something that would pass or that he would get used to.

Thing was, he hadn't wanted to get used to the other things and certainly didn't want to get used to _this_. He should talk to the Voice… but what would he say?

Actually, maybe this was revenge. The Spirit hadn't been in the best of moods, when he'd taken over… when Ryou had fought him. He groaned, closing his eyes, then opening them right away. He didn't need a repetition of the earlier episode.

So, what was he supposed to do now? He couldn't very well stay in the stall till the end of lessons or skip away. All his things were still in the classroom, including the key to his flat. And how would that look on his school record anyway?

But, on the other hand, what if he only went back to have another, uh, attack? Ryou shuddered. It didn't bear thinking about. What were his options then: Return to class and hope for the best …?

That did seem to be his only option. Great. Just great. Well, there was nothing else to be done but bravely venture forward. Ryou stood and opened the door – and walked straight into the Domino Museum.

Not exactly the museum, though. One room in particular. He'd spent some time in it right after the exhibition had opened, because it had been just strange. There was a stone tablet in it and Ryou could swear the people on it looked like Seto Kaiba and Yuugi. He was standing right in front of that tablet now as he'd done back then and… now, he was standing in front of another one. It depicted … a duel monster!

Right, this was just too weird. He'd been at school before, he couldn't be anywhere _else_.

_Splash_.

Ryou shook his head, looking about. He was back in the bathroom and around himboys had gathered, laughing. A bucket – from the cleaning supplies – was being put back in its place. His hair was dripping wet, as were his clothes.

"Seemed like you needed a wake-up call, Bakura," someone called. The laughter increased.

Ryou sighed. One more reason to skip - screw his record, he'd go home.

-

**I have illumined the blackness and I have overthrown the destroyers. I have made obeisance unto those who are in darkness.**

**-**

**The Sinner on Cursed Ground**

**-**

Crickets chirped, the wind blew, and a fox lay in waiting. For hours now, he'd been lying on his bed unmoving but for slow and even breathing, an imitation of restful sleep. Sparse light from the window, courtesy of a half moon, illuminated his still face. There was a hint of colour, for the alarm clock, digital, showed off its numbers in glaring red: 4:03 a.m - the time when any guard would be the least attentive. Kurama knew this, had used the knowledge to his advantage on many occasions. _He_ would not be so easily caught unaware. In fact, he would do the catching.

The room darkened suddenly, and Kurama heard the soft sliding of a window. Something – _someone_ climbed over him, almost stepping on his hand, missing barely. The intruder moved away then, presumably to the desk. Kurama opened his eyes a tiny bit, squinting through the slits. Yes, the desk, as expected. And contrary to his usual habit, the intruder was not wearing a black cloak but something white… so _this_ was where the bed sheet which his mother had declared missing had disappeared to.

It wasn't just the sheet which had gone missing, though. Some of his plants and potions had suddenly found themselves able to walk away on their own, as well, and tonight one more would have joined their ranks – if he hadn't kept it underneath the blanket, right by his side.

"Looking for this?"

The intruder jerked around, coming face to face with Kurama, who had sat up in bed. Chin to forehead, anyway. Hiei wasn't quite _that_ small. They eyed each other – or better put, Kurama watched Hiei sway on his feet, staring fixedly at the vial of restorative draught he held in his left hand.

"Last I knew," he continued, a bit put out at the lack of reaction, but even more at the gall Hiei had shown, "my things were not public property."

That did indeed prompt a reaction, only it was not quite the one Kurama had expected. Instead of replying – be it with a lie or scathing retort –, Hiei dove at him sending them both to the floor. For a moment they each sought to take the upper hand, but Kurama held out and finally had the fire demon pinned down. Glaring ensued, which Kurama answered to with an impatient, "Well?"

Hiei swore, falling back to his native Makai dialect. If Kurama had needed any other indication of his state – in addition to the low ki, the blood, and the amount of _noise_ Hiei had made during his breaking and entering –, this would have given him enough to conclude that he was a hair's width away from toppling over; if they hadn't been lying on the floor that is.

"Release me now and I won't kill you."

Single minded and stubborn to the last. Well, Kurama could be just as obstinate. "No."

Hiei blinked. Once. Twice. Then his brows creased and the glare, which had already been quite impressive before, intensified. "Then prepare to die."

There was a lengthy pause during which nothing happened. A smirk began to grace Kurama's lips. "That will be before... or after you have freed yourself?"

Hiei snapped at him, using what little mobility he had, and clamped his jaws down on Kurama's neck, sticking there as fast as a pit bull. Kurama held back a curse of his own, but barely. It _hurt_. He did not loosen his grip on Hiei's hands, however, and neither did he shift his weight and give the terrier a chance to turn the table.

After a moment in which it became clear that this wouldn't work, Hiei let go, grinning, and licked the blood off his crimson lips. This was a challenge if ever there was one, and Kurama would answer it. With his free hand – more or less free, since he was still holding the vial – he tucked a strand of his hair away from his mouth.

The way was clear now, unobstructed. Kurama retaliated.

Force was not needed to initiate a kiss but Kurama used it, anyway, parting Hiei's lips before he could recover from the surprise attack. His lips would be swollen, bruised even, but right at this point Kurama didn't care about anything past getting his point across. He would not be treated like this. He would not be challenged on his own territory. He –

– would be surprised that Hiei actually kissed back.

_Uff_!

And they said _he_ fought dirty. As Kurama lay on the floor, trying to recover his senses and understand what had happened, he thought that he probably shouldn't have gotten quite that caught up in the kiss. If he hadn't – or so he reasoned, when some of his said senses did return – he'd have noticed when Hiei had wriggled free, and thus would have not been hit so hard that he was seeing stars.

Not that such musings mattered much now, at least not when Hiei was standing over him, vial in hand and an expression on his face that was both smug and promising much (painful) retribution.

Hiei lifted the vial, inclined his head towards Kurama, and spoke a quite morbidly twisted toast.

"To your funeral."

Kurama watched Hiei uncork the vial and drink the draught in one go.

Then he watched him keel over.

It took a few moments before he finally could be bothered to get off the floor, since it was nice down there and it wasn't as if Hiei was going anywhere anytime soon. Not after the sleeping mixture Kurama had slipped him at the beginning of their kiss. It could knock out Godzilla-sized oni, a little Forbidden Child didn't stand a chance, especially considering that his energy had been depleted quite heavily… on the other hand, this _was_ Hiei. Kurama sighed. He'd better start right away before he awoke, ruining his plans.

First things first, divesting Hiei of his sword and putting it out of reach - want any accidents to happen wouldn't want any accidents happen when the potion wore off.

Secondly then: preparing himself and removing the headband that served as a ward. Carefully however, since when its master was not conscious the Jagan had an inclination to look out for him - and it would not take kindly to curious foxes poking around in the energy flow and thus learning a bit more about what was going on; importantly, discovering the reason why Hiei had indeed returned for a restorative draught as Kurama had hoped but not quite believed he would. He had wanted to catch Hiei in the act since he hadn't the first time the demon had broken in. None of his traps had worked, in fact they'd been disabled, and no alarm had sounded for the same reason. In other words, Hiei had managed to hit Kurama where it hurt the most: his reputation as the King of Thieves had suffered.

Still, even though his pride had wanted Hiei to return, his common sense had been against it since there could only be cause for such a night time visit: something had gone wrong during the summoning.  
This meant, of course, that Kurama needed to find out just what that was, one way or the other, for if the problem persisted, their chances of surviving the Dark Tournament would decrease dramatically.

Kurama knelt down next to Hiei, hand hovering over the headband.

Hiei being Hiei wouldn't just tell him what had happened and admit to a mistake – too proud, too stubborn.

Too leery and suspicious.

With reason, naturally, since Kurama was not someone who inspired trust in those who knew of him and his past. Indeed, he was still as sneaky as ever – in and out with no one any the wiser. It took skill, though – Kurama pulled off the ward and revealed the Jagan –, to move about and search unnoticed. Often sacrifices had to be made, as well, like in this case, where a steady stream of energy had to be fed to the Eye. Kurama had to insert himself – or better put, his own energy – into the flow between Hiei, Jagan, and the being Hiei called a god so as to be able to read the exchange.

At the same time he had to fight the Jagan back, what with it being a greedy little thing and wanting to replenish its energy by every means possible. Although, if it received too much, Hiei would realise for sure that Kurama had messed with it and he wouldn't be happy, to put it mildly.

Kurama tweaked the flow a bit, then concentrated on the feeling, at last. Hm, both Hiei and the Jagan were considerably weakened – that was to be expected – and the Dragon was… not exactly there. It was still connected with Hiei, yes, but it was hardly participating in the exchange of energy, and what it did send felt dark, peculiar, but strangely familiar. He had come across it before.

Kurama frowned, trying to come up with a clue. It was buried somewhere in his memories, he was certain of that, and it must have happened in his old life… a long, long time ago.

"… _such a presence …"_

"… _magic darker than…"_

"… _they also call him the King of…"_

-

**Son of Author's Note:**

There's three of us trying our hand at this, so we figured we should try to extend either greetings or an explanation for our references. Feel free to skip, of course, and many thanks for reading this!

-

**Viridian Magpie**

-

Hallo there, this is Viridian Magpie, your personal purveyor of everything foxy, thieving and white-haired – or in other words, our dearest thief kings plus host. Ah yes, poor little Ryou-chan. He's just so lovely torturable, isn't he? Though, truth to tell, I do believe him to be a strong person. After all, he does bear his sufferings like a man. Either that or he's a masochist… well, Bakura is sadistic and they're two corresponding halves…ahem. This may not be the place for such musings, I guess.

Back to the topic at hand, then, this being just a general notice, in fact. As I said, I'm responsible for the characters I've just listed, so if there's something you want to comment upon in regards to them, I'm the one to address it to. Mhm, that's all.

**-**

**Ancalyme**

-

Hello, Ancalyme speaking, the person who hopefully won't be eviscerated for our very own CEOs and ex-Pharaoh midget POVs. I'd say more, but I haven't the faintest what, so I'll conclude with a 'send all flames and roasted chickens for those particular characters to me'.

-

**ego**

-

Hullo - meet the urchin to blame/kill/torture for Rastaltan and Hiei and their respective babbles. Seeing how we're all responsible for what we do with our prose, ego alas feels the need to pin-point and explain the adjacent references that self made use of during self's parts.

Ah, but where to begin?

There are many things to say, and I fear one had been quite receptive in terms of influences.

**I. Rastaltan **

Rastaltan is a reminiscence of old tongue, and its meaning is simple: Snake. A Snake is not a Dragon, but there is a certain resemblance, and I admit to have fallen in love with the phonetics.

Rastaltan's tale is neither canon based nor particularly mythological – it was just so very _fun_ to think that there'd be those who'd imagine the Dragon as a God, rather than a weapon to be conjured. The cult of Rastaltan was born of a whim, though no doubt we'll weave around it. As for Rastaltan's "personality" – well, let's just say that _thing_ has a conscience of its own, and not one that's particularly easy to write, at that.

**II. Epur si muove, the wheel of pain, and then the wheel of fortune**

Epur si muove - "And yet, it moves" – Galileo's famous last words in defence of the fact that, contrary to the Church's insistences, the Earth was not at all flat, and did indeed move. He was burnt on the stake. The line was thrown in more or less as an emphasis of Rastaltan as an omnipotent and all-knowing creature, be they demon or human or cosmological matters.

The "wheel of pain" wants itself as an oh-so-pretty reference to the Inquisition, whereas there is little to be said of Boethius' "wheel of fortune".

**III. The plants: Cannabis Sativa, dreamwine, milk-of-the-poppy**

Nostradamus is said to have used Cannabis in his little endeavours on the plane of "visions", and one was partial to having Hiei exploit the same plant for similar devices. There were three very grand options, but decided against C. Ruderalis almost immediately – not that potent, and had C. Indica removed from the list the moment it was black on white that, while the strongest of the three, Cannabis Indica gives off the "happy feeling", but not as many hallucinatory experiences. Sativa, however, was strong, and said to encourage "cerebral" responses. Thankfully, we had Kurama to produce it. Bless his black little heart.

Dreamwine and milk-of-the-poppy are more or less curative. Dreamwine is often used as an anaesthetic, and milk-of-the-poppy is a play on words on the name of a diluted opiate substance.

**IV. The Summon **

…was a mess of alchemy and voodoo and pretty Hiei-in-sheets-_oooooooh_ images. The fangirl in self was v. happy Hiei's summoning Makai fire, which I equated with cold fire, and then metals. Hiei had an energy amplifier, the Jagan, and so we needed the metal amplifiers, which I admit I borrowed from general astronomical supposition. Am not very content with the half moon. Would have needed an eclipse to work truly nice, but I doubt Hiei'd wait for one those between Summons

Hiei offered some blood, but the life's blood came from another halfdemon. He killed his own shadow as a representative of his material ego. That is not the alchemical way, nor should there be a sacrifice – but, frankly, one has never heard of alchemists trying to summon a Makai dragon, nor did one have an accurate foundation.

That Rastaltan would take his chances and run towards the equivalent of a summon energy produced during the Kaiba - Bakura duel is a question of "personal choice" rather than intention. Neither Kaiba nor Bakura were probably heading out to give a hand and seduce a Makai beast, but Rastaltan _does_ seem to have a mind of his own. See above…

Hiei's trance and Rastaltan's plane are adaptations of the Visionary Planes, and no more, whereas the white "veils" make up the invariable circle of age and maturity: purity, and the end of such through death.

**V. Miscellaneous**

_Baron Samedi_ will probably be known to you in connection to a certain Io of the Voodoo methods; no distinct association with the religious practice is meant by this, other than the obvious.

The _Wakizashi_ length part is owed to a private belief that Hiei's blade is not a katana. One thinks that Hiei's entirely too fond of parrying and limited distance attacks in order to chance working with a sword that's mainly used for offensive. If that were a katana, self maintains Hiei'd be short of an arm on regular occasions – and Wakizashi, while not only retaining parts of the katana shape but being thinner, smoother and more elegant, also have their own meaning and utility.

Self sick of the third person, yet? is mentioning all these, and probably making it a very tiring Author's Note because self understands that there are probably far better read people in several of these topics, and if they find any irregularities, one would be as indebted to them should they mention it, as well as to the casual reader who would mention what he/she doesn't approve with in terms of my drugged Hiei or annoying dragon.

Thank you kindly for your attention, and one does hope you had a pleasant reading. If possible, review? If not, much dragon love! Oy…should install a "references forum" or some such…


	2. Lethargy

**Author's note the first:** Well, um, hullo there. Begging everyone the necessary pardons for the delay in between updates. We come to you in penitence with a ridiculously long chapter that had to be parted in two (so do expect a future update somewhere far sooner) and a diminished formula. While Ancalyme has – alas! - abandoned us, she's also graciously accepted to offer her input when we come down begging.

…of course, we could claim that was the reason behind the delay, but, er, no, really, we were just a touch overwhelmed by our respective school work. And lazy. Phenomenally lazy, in fact. Don't kill us, for we bring word of where that wretched little dragon is?

**Disclaimer:** the quotes marked as such pertain to the Book of the Dead. All recognizable characters and concepts belong to their respective creators and the adjacent organizations associated with them.

**-**

**May he not be rejected, may he not be turned back…**

**-**

**Of Many Whisperers**

**-**

_Run, run, Yomi's son,_

_Your army's come undone!_

_Run, run, Yomi's son,_

_At your side there's no one!_

"But Shura's never waged war…" And the little ones argued with him fiercely, and came to their knees to kiss the gift of rings on his fingers.

Hiei was no one's messenger, but coin was coin and hadn't a pretty taste, nor face, and it could buy it _all_, regardless. A son born to Yomi, of his own clever making – a damnation to two other lordlings who were not easily appeased, but who would welcome ample notice.

Raizen's whores took hold of him once he'd left his spoken charge to the Lord Commander – exacted the compensation for his trouble – and would have easily, oh so easily fled, if only fickle hands hadn't wrapped around his, and if only the dances hadn't begun in the middle of a corridor spiked with the blemish of sophisticated scents and oils and flowers ripened to the point of sweet airy nothingness.

"He's never waged–"

How long had he been in Raizen's realm? Had he brought jewels, other than this horrid tale of ill chosen successors? They circled him, round and round, fair faces and honeyed tongues and children's words, and that never ending trill to their own fair fortune– "_Run, run, Yomi's son_-"

-

Laughter, somewhere, hot-hot like fire from Ras-

Then, "You can't…"

But, always-

…_run, run_...

-

Hiei woke with a start, and the knowledge of having to say something.

And he must have _already_ said the words, surely, something rather like a curse, or a blessing, or a touch of the both, though he couldn't remember which.

_Shura_… the name…what was it? Who? Had he – the faint aroma of quick silver and laurel.

He couldn't breathe. Foreign, as a nomad's touch, the air left him.

He couldn't _think_.

_This isn't me_. A thorough realization. _This isn't what I'd say._

Malign. Like a plague. Like a dream. To all dreams an ending, though he couldn't foresee it, no, yes, what? _Cold_. Cold around his lips, and his hands, the very tips, devoid of anything; no contact, no impression, most certainly no acknowledgement of anything, anyone. Instead, an overwhelming, all-encompassing, all-sending-to-the-seven-hells-thank-you carousel ride.

And Hiei couldn't _envision_, though the little voice snuck tightly in his skull told him everything. _No war waged_, it said to him. _No victory. Rastaltan, and denial._

At some time, he realized, he must have opened his eyes. He couldn't _remember_.

-

"I see you're awake." _Kurama_.

Awake? No, sleep. Sleep was – again came the pulse, maddening, maddening pulse, a vice, a whip, the executioner's bang-bang over the sides of his skull. Sleep was kind, yes, but Hiei had to-

– he made the grievous mistake of trying to move, and the migraine severed his ties to the real world. He pawed, searched, haunted - hungry hands, clever hands, please be there, _please…_

_Fear_, now. Fever, he had the fever still. Gods.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't _think_.

"Can't…"

He pawed some more, pawed like the animal he was, pawed like a – laughter – like a fox. Needed it. Knew what he needed, far too much hurting, too much pain for just one mere creature. For two, however, yes…and he had to find the straps. The Jagan's doing, this pain, all of it. Had to find the-

"Can't…have…do…can't…"

There was an unimaginable array of shape and shade and colour, and his head hurt, and so did his arms, since those blasted females were pulling at them, and –

_Too real_.

Too close.

More pain, but an ounce of lucidity triggered restraint; he paid the retreating Mandevilla vine a measure of consideration, and then an ounce of gratitude by allowing that it should see to its doing.

The fold was pressed clumsily, but old dreams and fancies disappeared as the ward's energy kept the Jagan's ailing hunger at bay.

-

Kurama's voice registered first, and then the floor, and the sheer absence of any heat whatsoever.

"My thanks," Hiei meant to say, but remained silent. His surroundings were dimly familiar: Kurama's floor. _Good_. Two corners on each side. Even better. Human conventions demanded that one should rest in the middle of a chamber, to Hiei's morbid fascination at their lack of instinctual strategy: three, or perhaps four openings for assassins, rather than two. Absurd.

But Hiei _had_ woken, and he could fend off any enemies, and the flooring was far too rough for a body bruised and bloodied all over. His formal excuse settled on, he staggered to the mattress, crawled whenever either a light dizziness or that fervent twitch to his insides had him freeze in terror of new lapses of unconsciousness. The ward may have supplied the mind some mild comfort, but Hiei needed his rest. Fluffy pillows and familiar scents, too.

Fear – comfort – sanctuary – something amiss.

…and Kurama sat there, cradled lazily in the seat of his little desk, feeling no great obligation to look accommodatingly flushed, or frustrated, or at some mild unease, but instead throwing him every now and then an idle glance simmering with a cold detachment that Hiei had rather hoped to never have to see again – as if he had long mastered and now possessed the world - and Rastaltan - and Hiei along with it - in the delicate grasp of pale and thin and perfectly _human_ fingers.

"I don't know what you thought you were doing...but you'll only have a tongue for a minute from now to tell me, so make it worth my while." The words came easily, and with them the intent and a cold fury.

Kurama scribbled on, carelessly. "…and what was I doing, exactly?"

"Forty seconds now. I _can_ count."

Hiei would not be ignored. Underlings always found it necessarily difficult to earn the approbation of their superiors; but he was not Kurama's inferior, and answers were owed to him. He had not intended to spend the night. He never did, though Kurama had a penchant for luxury, and so an enviable amount of food and the occasional cover where usually at his discretion. Kurama was neither a good cook, nor silent, and therefore undeniably _poor_ company, but he was certainly not devoid of _warmth_, sometimes a provider of such, or at least not too glutton when it came to sharing.

The same Kurama was also, however, unfortunately partialto childish bouts of gloom and sulking, tantrums and long – futile- pauses supposedly meant to have Hiei eaten by guilt and repenting of his every little sin. "And how do you propose to do away with my tongue?"

Hiei's eyes narrowed a bit. "Cut it off?" A grin. " Rip it off?" Or perhaps… "Bite it off?"

Comprehension dawned, and Kurama finally deigned to look at him. Yes, Hiei remembered. He remembered _everything_. And the Jaganshi had yet in his entire life come upon a strategic advantage that he did not like.

"Wait until I die of old age and it decays?" Their eyes met for a telling second. "If you want anything to alleviate your pain… all you need to do is ask."

"Like you ask? For anything?" spat Hiei, still livid. The tight clutch of thin fingers over the covers gave the knuckles an uncanny pallor. He couldn't look away from all the white. Pain was no new rite, it would come, it would cleanse, it would pass. A second wave of spasms and nausea had him reconsider the extents of pride. Finally, he managed to add, "This changes nothing."

But somehow, once Kurama took all the time in the world to slide from his seat, once Hiei had the vial in his trembling hands, _everything_ was different.

"It's quite fast working." No toast this time; Hiei drank quickly, and steadily. "Mind telling me what's going on?"

_Fear_, again.

This unpleasant interlude had obviously diverted him from giving the matter much precious thought, but even then the logical answer had been born of instinct: too much pain for just one creature.

"It's a pretty little thing, all right, but make the mistake of baring it to your betters, and they'll latch onto the bond like a pack of leeches. No sign of this to other telepaths, not until you've fully mastered it," Shigure had muttered with a tap to Hiei's wards, very much the wise, sophisticated elder telling an overly enthusiastic junior how to behave.

Except he hadn't behaved, not at all – and now it all came down to a choice.

Hiei took it.

After a pause, he said, "You have my sword."

"In my wardrobe." Kurama shrugged, almost elegantly, and his eyes widened in fleeting recognition as he delivered the steel.

When their hands touched, it was to a brief greeting of youki: human-bred, demon, fire, ice, blindness, and that sickening combination that had clung all over Hiei since the moment of his waking. He knew – had known – was impossible for him _not_ to notice, that at some point their energy had woven together. And for lack of other means to explain it and his continued presence there, he had reached the inevitable conclusion that Kurama'd endeavoured in yet another of his silly little ploys: draining him.

Energy was never freely given among demons, and so a pleasurable trickery was nearly always forfeited. Sexual, on most occasions – to overwhelm the body with pleasure was to make it vulnerable in the face of other, more subtle demands. And it didn't surprise him that Kurama should be fairly knowledgeable of such things.

It came naturally to the youko, as to all manipulators, who depended on energy stimuli, and could not summon their own – though Hiei had met only a choice assortment, and left even fewer alive – and silver foxes were indeed rare; he'd only heard the bright tale of this one, in fact, yet he had known from the beginning that Kurama'd not be immune to the attractions of such an exchange, another sleight of hand.

At Maze Castle, Hiei had had little warning.

"Just a taste," then the soft brush of thin lips, and he'd felt Kurama, and that hideous wound, and a touch of his fire slipping, little by little, and then dancing away – until he was lost to something of a haze, and a cloying magnolia scent _everywhere._ He woke from dazzle and an odd fainting sensation to an even odder shade of warmth over his cheek: Kurama's hand, but Hiei was never usually cold.

"No more. You're no good at this."

They'd shared a laugh, though Hiei still shaking, and then pondered leaving the fools where they lay – until Koenma's summons, which were ill suited at best. Yusuke and Kuwabara had fought heroically, he'd said – and it was apparently not for heroes to be groped and molested by whatever odd turtle critters had taken to various appendages in Suzaku's sewers. Hiei doubted the tall dummy would have minded and Yusuke he even believed would have been privately thrilled. Just like Koenma to deny them a perfectly enlightening experience.

And just like Kurama to keep his silence and leave him no teachings, though Makai had yet again been kinder: Hiei had found answers in the arts of Thakar-no-Arai, and the Ninety Vows of Silence - all means to the same end, the mastering of the many segments of energy fluctuations.

He'd be rather good at this now, he supposed, good enough to be kissed. _Dragon kissed_.

Reminiscing came easiest with hesitation. He caught the sabre's handle fiercely, every ridge and callus in matching place. "You'll want to look away now. Wouldn't want to offend your delicate human sensibilities."

"Don't worry, my so called human sensibilities won't be offended." In a few words, he managed to extinguish all of Hiei's sentimental delusions; no, _this_ Kurama didn't understand the ache and the humiliation, this Kurama didn't understand _anything_. "How fortunate. You'd be the one to clean afterwards anyway."

Kurama looked on to him warily, but not without interest. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"But it's something you do so well." The only thing he did well, aside for murder and thieving and wenching. Kurama took _what_ he needed, _when_ he needed it; need made slaves, not companions.

Hiei should know of such things, and the burn on his hand spoke of as much, the burn on his arm from Rastaltan's doings, the already fading burn where the blade had bit of his flesh from the clutching.

Although Hiei had comported himself scrupulously fair, and only taken life's energy from those whose lives he had already won by way of combat, he had been conscious of his relief when the decision had been removed from his hands, and Rastaltan had ceded him his might in the aftermath of the first successful Summon. His own youki, amplified by Rastaltan's? A fountain of power, bestowed destruction upon everything, everyone. And then, ancient words of warning, now holding a promise: _The dragon renews itself._

It was disgraceful how he'd never prepared for the eventuality of Rastaltan's inversion of their well determined roles. Hiei was, by right, Master, but he could just as easily be mastered; with the execution of a failed Summon, his energy would serve as war spoils suitably enough. Now it was Rastaltan who fed from Hiei's youki, crushing the Jagan, and the habit needed breaking.

Time to end this.

He let the ward fall, seduced the Jagan out with a small offering of energy, and then pressed the tip against the lid.

Distantly, he thought of how unseemly it would be that he should abandon his stubborn conviction and whimper like some common whore or ill bred craven.

As he shoved it the blade through the third eye's pupil, Hiei did not whimper.

He _screamed_ and _wept_ and _bled_.

**-**

**Deliver thou me from the great god who carrieth away souls, … the guardian of the darkness who himself liveth in the light. They who are in misery fear him.**

**-**

**Of Foetid Dreams**

**-**

It was a street like any other in Domino City. Grey asphalt, white lines, cars going _whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,_ nothing more than fast moving pieces of metal to the people on the sidewalk. Nothing more than blurs of colour and sound, if that, to Ryou, who wandered aimlessly, his feet feeling heavy, his mind even more so.

Had it been only _so_ many days since that night, when the Voice had returned? It felt like an eternity had passed, one spent in hazy pain, in memories that were but were not his, in feverish dreams that plagued him both in sleep and when he was awake. _When_ he was, _if_ he was. Even this stroll felt like sleepwalking, he was there, he was moving the body, it _was_ under his control, but everything around him felt surreal.

It was the sleep deprivation, he knew. Last night he had not shut his eyes for more than ten minutes at most before waking up again, disoriented, fumbling for his alarm clock and groaning when he read the time. Still, in those few minutes, images had passed through his mind. Dreams. Nightmares. They smothered him, molested him like love struck incubi, squeezing his chest until he couldn't _breathe_, because the visions they sent, the images he was shown, were not in the least stimulating. Foremost among these horrors was the last one he had seen, right before getting up in this morning. He'd just lain down again, having fetched himself a glass of water – he'd been so parched –

_and all of a sudden he was standing amidst the ruins of what might once have been an old factory at the edge of town. A factory, that is, before it turned into a shelter for that piece of lowlife scum he'd been searching for these past days. Well, he chuckled, it had been a _shelter_ for only a very short amount of time, then, at his hands, it had become a trap of noxious fumes and fire._

_He took a few steps forward, his eyes darting left and right, trusting his nose to keep him going into the right direction. The smell was hard to miss and even in the presence of other odours, burnt flesh had its own distinctive, easily recognisable flavour. Another step taken and he halted in front of a darkened piece of charcoal, vaguely human-shaped. He bent down, turned it over. It was still hot to the touch, though he was sure that his victim had not suffered the agony of a fiery death, the smoke would have had him blacken out, asphyxiated him before he felt more than the stifling heat from the flames, a taste of them but not their touch itself._

_A pity, really._

_When he had roused from _that one_, the aftertaste of ashes had still been on his tongue and he'd been hot and sweating, even though he'd rid himself of his blanket at some point. That phantasm had been so vivid, so convincingly real, that it had taken a moment or two, before Ryou had been able to distinguish between the arrogant callousness in the dream and his own sickened horror upon wakening. _

He'd known the Spirit did terrible things, but up until the first memory he'd never really seen-smelled-tasted-felt them, had only come to himself in the aftermath, when there was nothing worse to see but motionless bodies and little figurines or not even that, because others had already tidied up, or his body had been far enough away, so that he would not _know_.

Perhaps this was why he was roaming now, he was looking for a way to escape, to go back to that state of not complete but at least sufficient ignorance. To the time when his conscience had been cleaner, when he'd still been that nice boy his mother was so proud of and his sister liked so much despite their age difference – she was four years younger.

And could be a real pest sometimes, especially when she had one of her fits of jealousy.

"Dad sent it to both of us."

No, he hadn't. The note had said 'A Treasure for my Son' – his father loved using old, very old, capitalisation – and it probably was, since it did look expensive enough. It was costly, it was his.

He clenched a fist, nails digging into his skin. Damn his father for being in Egypt the whole time and leaving his son alone and the museum, too. He really shouldn't, the museum needed its director and he wanted his father – and his mother and his sister, too. And, and,… Ryou gritted his teeth, staring angrily at nothing in particular. Thoughts of his family always brought about others, like the accident that they had died in, and he wished that he could just remember the nice things, the happy times, like… like… that food fight he and Amane had had. Boy, had his mother been angry then.

Speaking of food, his stomach growled threateningly and he couldn't recall the last time he'd eaten something. Yesterday? The day before that? Didn't matter now, really, and, well, he didn't want to eat, in fact, didn't feel like it, but he should. If he didn't, his tenant might just do it for him, whenever he decided to take over again and his tastes were… not quite the same as Ryou's.

Blargh.

Grumbling, Ryou let his gaze travel from store to store until it came to rest on a fast food restaurant. It would have to do and, actually, considering that he didn't have all that much money on him, it was just right.

Looking up and down the street, he waited for a lull in traffic. The street curved around a bank pretty close to him, but if he walked fast, he could make it, before the next car came around the corner. Ryou took a couple of steps forward, feet dragging on the asphalt – but he was so _tired_ –, before the muscles in his legs stiffened suddenly and then went completely slack. Arms flapping wildly, like a pelican trying to take off, he swayed backward for a moment before falling flat on his nose. He groaned, carefully touching his face – that would leave some marks for sure. Shaking his head to free himself from such unimportant thoughts, Ryou scrambled to get up and off the street. Which was to say, he tried anyway, because his legs just - wouldn't - work. For a few seconds, his mind was filled with panic and he made frantic attempts to stand up – God, why wouldn't his legs work? –, then everything slowed down to slow-motion. A car came around the corner, its driver distracted by whatever he was fumbling for on the seat next to him. One of his hands was on the steering wheel, holding it in place for the turn. Someone shouted, a drawn-out roar that went on and on and on and –

Flash!

A ray of light from his Ring hit the car, no, hit the driver, hit his heart, hit his soul.

The vehicle swerved away from Ryou, the front tyres changing course, the other two following their lead.

Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling. Coming closer, closer, closer to the streetlight while people were running, running, running away until…the car crashed into the pole.

As if the loud bang had been a sign the world suddenly moved and caught up.

Shouts surrounded him, women screamed. A pair of hands hauled Ryou up, depositing him on his feet again, though, he was too distracted to notice that he could stand on his own. He pulled away from the fingers gripping him, from the worried voices that asked if he was alright, from the aggravated ones that wanted to know, whether he had lost his mind. He did not heed them nor their questions and accusations but walked forwards towards the wreck and the driver. The victim.

The street seemed unbearable wide and hard and unforgiving, even though he did not have to cross more than three lanes – actually, two and a half, for he had started out in the middle of the first one.

People pushed past him, holding up the traffic by loitering. Approaching cars, trucks, bicycles, what-have-you sounded their horns or rang their bells, then came to a stop before the crowd, tires screeching. Several people swore.

Still, Ryou ignored all this and continued on his way. Even before he got close and had squeezed through the masses that surrounded the car, gawking or arguing or just plane standing around doing nothing, he knew what he would see: lifeless eyes; blood perhaps or twisted limbs, maybe the driver was even still breathing but his stare would be deadened nonetheless.Ryou took another couple of steps before halting, gaze travelling up from the door to the window, towards the face and the _eyes_. He could not bear to look at them long, turning his head slightly, then stopping.

_So this is where…_

From the rear view mirror a doll dangled, one of those kitschy Elvis Presleys that were found in so many cars of men in midlife-crisis and women that still squealed when "Always On My Mind" sounded from the radio. His father had one of them in his bedroom, taking up a place of honour next to a picture of Ryou's mother. She'd been a fan and that little Elvis had been hers.

Ryou checked himself, not wanting to dwell on that any more now. Instead he focused again on the doll, which was swinging back and forth, hips moving, hand gripping the microphone, a gleam – a spark of _life_ – shining in its plastic eyes.

A laugh threatened to bubble up in Ryou's throat, hysteria its eager companion.

_The King lives. Don't you see, don't you see?_

He could not hold back anymore, he needed to laugh, to giggle, to shout it out, to the world. He'd ignore those around him, who would stare for sure; let them stare, it was funny even if they didn't see it. It was freaking _hilarious_.

So funny, so tragic, so true. Don't you see?

Yes, the King lived, they both did. The King of Rock, an idol trapped inside himself, the King of Thieves, a Voice living inside Ryou's mind.

Don't you see? Hidden behind another's eyes, behind mine. And no one suspects.

No one _ever_ suspected Ryou of anything. The police would come, in fact, he could hear sirens from afar, and they'd ask him questions and he'd answer and nobody would think him at fault, he'd stumbled really, he was _sorry_, he _never_ wanted it to happen, and he was so, so sorry.

So sorry. I'm sorry.

Something shifted in the back of his head and a single exasperated thought invaded Ryou's mind before it was plunged into utter darkness and he blackened out.

"_Idiot."_

-

…**may he enter in as he pleaseth, may he come forth as he desireth, and may he be victorious.**

-

**Of Wooed Kalends**

-

He thought he heard Kurama hiss. It might have been Hiei's own voice, though he couldn't lay a certain claim on it. The world began and ended with the perfectly vivid sting in his eye, three layers of skin thrice burned, once removed, and then the cleanest incision through pupil and colour and too much light. A momentary lapse from the burn in every synapse proved itself horribly taxing.

His vision blurred, and the pain in his head, and the room, and Raizen's whores were moving his hands – damn those rings, take them, _take them_!- and the Lord Commander was now holding his shoulders, and he was shaking him, and had Hiei told him about Shura? Shura who hadn't waged war? And his head hurt as he drowned in the Jagan's blood and his tears.

For a moment, he wanted to sink closer in his sheets and his corner and just wretch up and die.

For a moment, he wanted to close his eyes, true born, implanted, _all of them_.

But the moment passed, and there was so much blood on his hands – and he threw the sword away, threw it on Kurama's carpets, never mind the stains, never mind anything. The Jagan under his claws was a raging beat on torn flesh, but the dragon was not the only one to renew itself, given time, and so Hiei soothed it briefly, asking that it should close, heal.

Somehow, when Kurama meant to gather the sheets around him to spare more linen a red baptism, he was still breathing. He stayed the youko's hand.

"_N'aase jisu_." A biding for a word, if Kurama could spare the moment, in some semblance of a Southern dialect .Hiei must have said this to the Lord Commander then, too, must have said everything, _anything_, and still got the accent so horribly wrong, as he was prone to.

Old ways and old tongues and older still retaliation.

"This is blood." A stupid afterthought, but he stilled Kurama's hand on the tainted cover all the same, brushed his own hand over the Jagan's life reds, held it out.

"Blood for blood." If Kurama was intimate with Southern word, then he also knew of Southern offerings of alliance – and this human play thing had, however unwillingly, given him blood the night before. If Hiei wanted an ally, he needed to trust; to trust one as world-weary as Kurama was perhaps the most idiotic conceivable notion, but appearances cost Hiei little, and blood already spilled, far less.

Where in the Makai a blood pact for an alliance would have served as an honour undreamt of for as one as Youko Kurama, in the Human World it came as his birthright. The irony of it left Hiei with a bitter taste, but an extended hand and hopes of acceptance.

Kurama's eyes shone in amused puzzle. "When I feed energy to my plants, they repay me by producing the sweetest of fruits... or most venomous of poisons, depending on my need."

Then he disregarded Hiei's hand, and dug a claw near the Jagan itself – blood from the source, the purest.

Hiei stood there, transfixed, almost caught in a shiver as Kurama made a tentative lick, a finger first, then the other - like playing a game of sorts, another game, and wasn't he winning? Except Hiei wanted to torture him, wanted to rip him apart for daring so much, and yet so little. That blood, a new sort of time honoured unholy wine, stigmata for heathens – the essence of the Forbidden One, so freely given, however much Hiei felt like screaming. _It's owed to you_! And more_, It's yours, and this is all yours, and you were as you should be, except you're not anymore! I want to kill you, do you know this? I want to kill you and let him out, and then chain him and own him and kill him too_!

But he couldn't.

That tongue swirled and lavished and took the whole of it in, too slowly, far too slowly.

It repelled Hiei, made him sick to his stomach.

It delighted him and reminded him of home.

Some part of the Summons ritual was still fresh to Hiei's mind, the poetry on his tongue. "Dragon kissed…"

"You're mistaken, I think." Kurama's laughter over the last of his feast was clean and fresh. "I'm still a fox."

"And _you're_ mistaken. I don't need you. You seem to think I do. You, and Yusuke Urameshi. Answers are not owed to you." Well, given their new status, perhaps not quite. He surveyed the odd line of his own blood on Kurama's lips and chin with vicious meaning. "It's arrogant to think otherwise. Are foxes arrogant?"

"If they have reason to be."

"Heh. Arrogant, treacherous and thieving. Charming creatures." Hiei was certain he would never live long enough to regret taking one home. "Sativa, now. Have some Indica in stock. Pay for _something_ in your life. And don't worry, I'll feed your curiosity. If it kills you, why not? What's there that the great Kurama doesn't know?"

Many things, in fact, and Hiei did not doubt this, much as Kurama preferred himself ever the wise mentor to Yusuke's impetuosity and the idiot's awe.

"Mhm, can't have me dead after all. Who'd provide you with the sativa?" Kurama seemed to have enough of a measure of his own importance as to not press the issue. "I gather there's a reason why you arrived here last night half dead yourself?"

"Temper, now. We don't know whether poor Shuichi's heart could bear the tantrum. I'm not here for pleasure. At least... not _my_ pleasure. "

Hiei paused – still difficult, to speak of it so loosely. "A Summon, if you hadn't figured it out. Does that soothe you?"

"That was obvious." The laughter had long died on Kurama's lips. "So what went wrong? Or does a normal Summon tire you out that much?"

"No, it doesn't. Failure. Thrilled?" Hiei's blood, this time, came from his own fangs and their gritting over fragile lips and tongue. He hated Kurama. Hiei hated him so fiercely, and he hated him so perfectly, that he didn't mind the spasms and the nausea, and he was on his feet and pressing Kurama back and knocking his pretty _human_ head to the wall in a dark blur, inviting angry welts and bruises as he tore the _human_'s hand from its place and constricted it over the Jagan anew. "Look at this - look at me now. _Failure_. Say it, then! Can't you? Too good for it? Too...gentle? Kind? Spare me! And spare me the pity!"

Silence.

"Say it, you idiot! Say it! Failure! Too big a word! Too- SAY IT, SAY IT, SAY—"His clutch denied the _human_ any leeway, but it wasn't enough; the damned _human_ wasn't even weak _humanly_ weak and not even spilling blood, so soon he was repeating the great performance of the youko-meet-wall introduction.

His knees gave out by the umpteenth attempt, and it was for a Kurama with glazed eyes and the most detestable look of pity to stay his fall.

Hiei did not faint again, but wished for differently.

-

Down, on his knees, head kept low in bow – a creature who had known some submission, Hiei supposed, but even from this posture he did so try to meet the knowing glance. There was apprehension in Kurama's eyes, and loss, and something terribly cruel as he spoke. "A failure."

Quite suddenly, Hiei didn't think of humiliation, and plays at power, and the sickly fascination with how right it was for him to be still bleeding from the Jagan quite like this – in light of all that he'd done, and all that he'd lost, and such a perfectly stupid error on his part, wasn't it?

He didn't think that there was a price to foolishness, and that it was consequence and causality which kept him like a pleasure slave in front of an indifferent patron, only just taking the whip.

Hiei didn't think he deserved it, though he did, really, for Rastaltan was king, and there were certain things that not even a forbidden one was meant to do, and which he had done willingly.

He didn't think of anything – instead, there was white blindness, an anger that threatened to build his fire, that pushed his hand – he stopped it in mid air – and his words – unbidden, they tore at his throat – and his determination.

Except for Yusuke, he had never wanted to kill someone quite this badly before.

And, he realized, Kurama knew this, for this was the one true game, _the_ game – and Hiei was indeed losing.

-

"At ease. This won't affect the team." Later, much later, Hiei managed the words again. "I'm putting things right."

He had to, no matter how many Summons it took, no matter if the dragon would ask for true life's blood. By Rastaltan's doing, or that of the Tournament's Committee, did it matter? Dead was dead, and their chances of survival were scarce at best without Hiei's intervention.

At one point or the other, Kurama had had one of those blooms of his deliver Hiei another sheet, and he cuddled to it and the floor savagely. "Of course, there won't be much of a team if you keep seeing to otherwise. Mind telling me what's going on?"

"I'm…looking out for you?" Kurama sounded rather stricken, though Hiei would neither look up, nor dignify such a poor lie with a response.

"You didn't seem to be well enough to answer my questions last night. I, ah, merely delayed you until you were up to it."

Closer to the truth, but not quite. Of course Kurama will have manipulated his way into someone else's affairs by whatever means, but his purpose was not yet within sight.

Hiei let it slide. "You never... _'asked'_"

…and then regretted it.

"I'm asking now."

-

Asking.

Wasn't Kurama always? And what could Hiei say_? I summoned, you fool, I summoned and lost. It's like a wager, except no one ever wins_. Rastaltan was God among Gods, and the true Makai dragon. He would answer, or he would not, as the whim took him. If the chance should rise, he would savour rebellion from a given captor, should only a sliver of energy come forth from contrary sources so that he may assimilate and devour all. Rastaltan, who killed everything in his path – why spare Hiei a glance, let alone obeisance? And Hiei, he had not mastered the Jagan to remain webbed in his make-believe blindness. The realization of his frail possession over such an unrivalled force had come with a passionate haste, and he had tasted of the fears that his prey should deny him even earlier on, when the nets had yet to be cast so carefully, and when Rastaltan had yet to bend the proverbial knee.

"…_and they'll latch onto the bond like a pack of leeches_." Leeches, yes. Hiei had seen these, and they had come, unwilled, to draw blood. He had detected their presence since his return to the Human World, similarly unwanted, but enforced by Koenma and his idiotic clauses. Sometimes, they were mere greetings of foreign ki; at others, they caused a certain alarm, and then migraines of which Hiei had hoped – futilely- that a demonic heritage would spare him.

Perhaps it was when Hiei, weary from the delayed tryst of _weeks_ upon _weeks_ of Calling, had stopped to cut down his losses, when he'd wavered his defences just a little, when he'd dropped the pretence of a fight in full that Rastaltan has seized the chance and answered another's Summon. Perhaps the Destroyer of Worlds had been trapped, or attracted, or kept in a more appropriate esteem than Hiei could nourish; surely not a greater affection. But somehow, at some point, it had happened, and they'd taken Hiei's God, the only God, the one of his making – and if only had they been there, Hiei would have chewed their bones to the last.

But "they" weren't there. Instead, he saw Kurama gazing at him intently, milk-of-the-poppy in hand, to soothe great pains, or the absence of mind. "Well?"

"I don't have any answers." His eyes passed the broken fingers and the blood caked under the claws, the voice still kittenish. "You didn't…feel any of it, did you, _Shuichi_?"

"You wouldn't happen to be talking about that bout of energy last night, would you? " Kurama shook his red head mutely, then discarded the potion to some inconspicuous drawer, or stashed it – _thief_- , then stretched closely, deep in thought. "It must have caused an interference." Low whistle.

It was not that Hiei truly doubted Kurama's human body could perceive the ki disruptions, given his abilities, only that it amused him fiercely to see the former fox so caught up in his display of modest superiority. (Bastard.)

"Yes, it…must have…" Kurama muttered. He looked expectant – Gods knew how long he'd waited for the theory. Hiei hadn't a notion, but a fox weary of banter was a fox willing to obey. Graciously, he confirmed sad suspicions. "It did."

Of course it did. Energy and a metal exponent, and a blood potenta…such a frail combination, such a poorly chosen Summon.

By the look of Kurama, Hiei almost expected them to fall back in their routine: no actual truths, just vague grunts or half laughter, and an odd sort of pleasantries of such a nature that, though no talk of weaponry or swaying the blade would be exchanged, it'd still have the gift of making Hiei most uncomfortable.

A sudden rush of dizziness took him – a prelude to the fevers of one whose ki goes to waste too swiftly.

"Food," he let slip, by way of request. Kurama raised a brow rather put off, but shrugged in something the Jagan bearer decided to deem as grudging acceptance. Sleep called for him, or hibernation, or intimate forgetfulness. Too much ki lost. Too little time, and the body's decision to go into shut down. Anticipated… he should have expected it, now that his energy catered for two. He'd sleep more, these days. Sleep and feed and sleep again. _Sleep_.

His pace stuttered as he tried to move about – almost fell, threw a hand irritably to sway the help of suspiciously close greenery.

"Kurama...I am still Master." A bite crept to his voice, but he did not look the other's way. "Never doubt it." He could stand. And if not, he could crawl.

When he collapsed again – the bed, so near - it wasn't to crawl, no strength for that, but to bring his hands to his face, kneeling, down, down, down, trying to rip the wretched things off – those damned rings, those damned whores, why didn't they just – Master? Who was Master? Shura? Shura was Master, and Hiei had learned of it, learned of it first, that meant a special reward, did it not? Special, special, as special as he, and he sang to that, really, or cried, something close – singing? But he knew the tune so well, and Hiei could sing prettily, though no one ever listened, and-

"K'rama…wanna hear? Pretty…run, run…run…" _Anywhere_. "…son…army…undone…" _Everything coming undone_. "At your side…there's…" _Rastaltan - a sister's warm blessing - a lover's smile - a primordial song, this._ "…no one… no one… no one."

Darkness.

-

**May my name be proclaimed, may it be found, may it be lastingly renewed.**

-

**Of Broken Reflections**

-

Eyes yet again trailing the path of lines drawn on the kitchen floor, Kurama checked one final time for any inconsistencies, any slip of the proverbial pen, but they were all complete and the squares were simply perfect, the angles of one separating the sides of the other into two equal halves. Empedocles would be proud.

A glance at the kitchen clock but it was not yet time, a few more minutes still remained and he needed to be precise in this, needed to use the small window of time that his calculations had allotted him. Not a second too early, not a moment too late. Ariston metron – moderation is best, a maxim that applied to every aspect of life. Take or have too small an amount of something and failure was sure to follow and all too often a shortage in power or skill or number meant death because hiding could not save you, it merely prolonged the inevitable.

'Where is he?'

Lurking on the upper branches of a tree, the young fox watched as a group of youkai searched for him, uprooting bushes and turning stones. They'd picked up his trail not long ago and most likely had believed him to be valuable enough to waste time trying to catch him – a silver pelt was a rare thing indeed and made even rarer by the prices others were willing to pay, an endless vicious circle, which could only end with the extinction of their race. If it came to this, however, he planned to be the last to go.

So they lacked in number and he could do nothing about this, not without first gaining skill and power to fend off those who would try to kill him.

He needed more power.

Such incredible luck that Hiei would offer it albeit unaware. Blood from the Jagan, pure, undulated, and serving Kurama's purpose so wonderfully. It was chancy, however. Power was all well and good but too much would lead to ruin, too. Byakko was an excellent example, the fat cat had swollen and all but burst when feeding of Kuwabara's energy sword.

But Kurama was not Byakko, would not be as greedy and certainly quite careful with _this_ blood at his disposal.

Heh, this also meant that he now had a surplus in supplies, which amounted to one chicken. Explaining to his mother why he needed to keep fowl around had been a challenge, fun though, and for a moment or two he had even entertained himself with imagining various ridiculous scenarios.

'You see, mother, I need it for a sacrifice. Of course, virgin's blood would have been better, but one can't have everything, I guess.'

His lips twitched; as if he'd tell her that.

Hmm, still, there was the problem of what to do with the chicken now that its life had been saved by a surly fire-demon. Actually… it would make a nice dinner for tonight, when his mother came home and perhaps he would surprise her with it. That was for later, however, now he needed to finish this rite.

9:48 a.m. He had better reheat the water, which was still warm, but the hotter it was the smoother this would work, and where was… ah, the bowl with ice was over there, right next to the potion – jasmine and dreamwine. Hiei really was useful at times.

The electric kettle clicked signalling that the water was ready.

9:50. Quick now, the compact mirror rested nearby and a small bowl next to it, on his right, put the ice to his left, the mirror in front of him, and the kettle, make sure he stood within the squares, count the seconds.

9:51. Crack the mirror, place it over the bowl, pore the water over his hand and wash the blood away and onto the silvery surface in front of him. Kurama gritted his teeth, literally aching to pull his left hand away and plunge it into the ice but not yet. First he needed to pore the tainted blood into the potion and drink.

9:52. He was done and now both his hand, buried in ice, and his throat burned; really, he should have thought of getting some ice-cream, as we-

Kurama gasped, eyes flying open wide, as a feeling thousands of tiny marbles making their through his veins and over his skin swept over him. His fingers tingled, his backside itched – though pleasantly –, and all around him plants were singing a melody reminding him of home.

9:53 Kurama had entered the squares, the youko came out.

He turned slightly gazing at the cracked mirror, admiring his broken reflection. Not broken any longer, he was whole, he was complete, he was Youko Kurama once more. Wouldn't that hybrid, who was now sleeping so comfortably in Kurama's bed, blanch when he discovered himself to be in the presence of a living legend.

Actually…

The youko turned slowly, preparing to savour Hiei's expression when he beheld the famous fox thief. It seemed the hybrid, alerted by the sudden rise in youki for sure, had come down to ogle. Chin lifting slightly, he finally stared down at the other demon. This was not the meeting of two equals, after all. While the half-breed might sneer at Kurama, there were no grounds to do so when faced with the youko. Quite the opposite, in fact, and Hiei did indeed act accordingly.

Rapture. Admiration. A glazed look.

The fox smirked, then opened his mouth to, yes, gloat – he had succeeded where Hiei failed, after all – and to put that little wannabe down a notch or two.

What came out, however, was not quite what he had intended. In fact, nothing left his mouth at first. Then, like breaker, a great wave building up and up and up, pain spread through his body, increasing until he could barely stand. He swayed, dizzy, a hand reaching for the table, steadying himself, the other going to clutch at his breast, gripping fine white cloth, tearing it.

He heaved, sinking to his knees, leaving scratches on the table, smearing some of the lines he had drawn on the floor, before eventually covering them with his breakfast and the potion. A rush of pinpricks went through his veins like so many pieces of glass and then he was almost curling in on himself, biting back a whimper. It had left, the beautiful melody had left and he was hurting so much.

Eternities passed while Kurama tried to get himself under control – he had to; he didn't _want_ to. His face was surely showing his struggle, good thing his hair worked as a curtain, bent double as he was, face almost touching the dirtied floor.

His nose twitched and his stomach turned again, but before anything more could leave his body, Kurama righted himself, though he kept sitting where he was. He swallowed once then wiped a hand over his mouth, staring listlessly at the ruins of his works.

If he were honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he would have remained like this a while longer but the thump of a door being shut upstairs – Hiei would never learn that closing it silently was politer or maybe he just didn't care – brought him out of his near-catatonic state.

He sighed. No use crying over spilt milk, as the saying went. Standing up he retrieved a rag to get rid of the greater part of the mess – the rest he would clean later – before shuffling to the bathroom. The taste in his mouth was disgusting; his hair needed washing, badly; and this shirt did really not belong on his body. The jeans were fine, a small mercy, for while he was certainly not prude, he had no intention of being seen and stared at in his underwear, which would put him at quite a disadvantage to boot. If he wanted to get anything about last night's events out of the hybrid, he could not afford to show himself that inferior.

Leaning over the edge of the tub, water running over his head, Kurama attempted to concentrate on the upcoming conversation, meaning to push any thoughts of the failed potion away from his mind. There were, after all, no doubts about what had gone wrong. It had been risky from the start, but he had been willing to take a gamble, since at his current power level he stood no chance at the Tournament and…

Tch. Trying not to think about this, was he? Well, he was _failing_ quite spectacularly.

'Say it. Why don't you?'

You're a failure, too, Kurama.

Now for the big question: should _he_ bang _Hiei's_ head against the wall?

No, while it was tempting to give tit for tat, he didn't actually feel an urge to throw a tantrum and even if – he did have better control than that.

And better manners, too, which reminded him – he better get his _guest_ something to eat. His mother had said that she had prepared bouillon for her ailing son, which he'd only need to reheat.

'I'm not feeling too well, mother.'

A lie then, it was true now.

Wrapping a towel around his head, Kurama went back into the kitchen, turned on the oven, and then sliced some bread almost swearing when he remembered that he had to hold the loaf with his burnt hand. The short time spent as a full youkai had sped up the healing process but it was still far from fine. His throat wasn't doing too well either, which quite effectively took care of the question of whether he'd be eating also. However, while he couldn't do anything about that, he could at least rub some salve into the skin of his hand. That done, Kurama made his way upstairs, dishes clinking and jingling. Keeping his face devoid of expression, he balanced the tray in one hand, opening the door with the other – Hiei had to close it, didn't he? – and entered.

There was a moment of silence before his guest, sprawling on Kurama's bed, spoke.

"A failure. We should have drunk to that."

In Kurama's mind there was absolutely no doubt that, should the hybrid ever find himself without a sword but badly needing to cut someone to pieces, his tongue would more than suffice.

"Touché."

It _was_ a good comeback, though belated, and, as a master of this art, he could recognise and acknowledge it accordingly. Besides, it wouldn't do to aggravate Hiei if he wanted to reach his aim. That didn't equate being a pushover, however. Putting the food down onto the desk, he left it up to Hiei to move his lazy behind and take it, while Kurama himself opened his wardrobe and put on another shirt.

"Twenty akhaari."

Huh?

Now, _that_ – whatever it was – had come out of the blue. Sitting down at his desk and rewrapping the towel around his head, Kurama used this motion as an excuse to delay replying. Was Hiei offering money? But what for? Something valuable obviously since 20 akhaari were no chicken-feed… though, was it even about the sum? It did seem odd that Hiei would mention Ktahal coins.

"Been there much?"

This time Hiei took a moment to answer, sneaking up on the tray.

"No. Which is why I might be wrong. Twenty-five, perhaps. Twenty-eight, if the ends are well kept. Are they? I couldn't tell. It's very...very..." He waved a hand, while Kurama waited for him to finish his thought. He now had an inkling of what Hiei was referring to and he did want to know how he'd describe it, but it seemed he wouldn't find out now.

"Thirty, if there's a name to it."

The summoning might have depleted Hiei's energy and thus reduced the speed at which he moved, but it certainly did not slow down the rate at which he calculated prices. Kurama inwardly rolled his eyes. Yes, the pelt of a silver fox would be worth that much on Ktahal's market and a "name" would raise the price. However, this was his pelt they were talking about.

"Please," Kurama murmured, "you insult me. Thirty-five at the least."

Then, because it was time they started talking about what really interested him, he added: "Less, of course, if your dragon burns it."

Hiei met this comment with a blank stare, indicating quite clearly what he thought about Kurama's inquisitiveness.

"Rastaltan has no quarrel with sickly foxes."

My, but wasn't he friendly today. Then again, illness or any physical discomfort did tend to make Hiei bitchy – but, as anyone who had made his acquaintance could attest to, Kurama would never willingly take on the role of whipping boy.

"Obviously, he won't have anything to do with sickly half-koorime, either."

Double-hit. Made even sweeter because Hiei couldn't seem to find an answer to that. Though, he really should turn his attention back to his objective, he'd seldom become so easily distracted.

He seldom had suffered such a defeat, too. It really was time to get back to Hiei's.

"Or perhaps something else has caught his interest," Kurama asked, finally sitting down at his desk again and crossing one leg over the other, while the hybrid glared at him again.

"Anyone who touches what's mine dies."

Possessive much? It wasn't entirely true, either. After all, Kurama was still alive and he _had_ had his hands on things Hiei considered his own: the sword first of all; Hiei's body, too – he couldn't have left him lying in the middle of his room like that, Kurama might have stumbled over him in the morning (unlikely). It would have made him a bad host, as well, though he'd been an unwilling one to begin with. In fact, considering what had transpired, he'd been _very_ generous all in all.

"And seldom does anyone survive who has touched something of mine. Your point?"

Kurama waited a few moments before it became clear that Hiei would not deign to answer, rather stuffing himself with bread and broth, a few drops spilling and soaking into the sheets of his bed.

"I don't think my bed needs nutrition."

He could be a _bit_ more careful.

"Then what are you thinking?" Munch, munch, slosh.

On purpose now, for sure. How childish – and stubborn. And repetitive. Well, he had dodged the question a few hours ago and it had only been a matter of time until Hiei would again ask why he was interfering.

"I'm thinking that between the two of us, it would be easier to find out who has kept it from answering your summons."

Hiei stopped eating, giving Kurama his full attention for once.

"This doesn't concern you."

Of course, it didn't. His survival at the tournament, after all, did naturally not rest on his teammates' performance – come to think of it, he had to schedule another training session with Kuwabara. Hiei's attendance would be appreciated, as well, but in his current state, he'd hardly be willing to invest some effort into "teaching that oaf how not to ram his sword up his own ass" (Hiei sure was charming sometimes).

"You've made it my concern. I need to know how much to stock after all."

And back to munching and sloshing; still, this time, Hiei seemed to be thinking things over rather than flat out ignoring what he said.

"What do you know of Summons?"

Kurama almost laughed at that, but it didn't do to irritate Hiei now and he would think he was being ridiculed and not believe Kurama even if he explained, which he didn't want to anyway. Either this or Hiei would start laughing at _him_ – it _had_ been an idiotic idea, but desperate times … called for hare-brained notions.

It was a curious state that he was in. The youko in him was not dead – this would have defeated the purpose – but likewise, he was not really alive in the sense that he had not been reincarnated, a process set off by death usually. Neither was the youko a ghost, he was… he was a spirit being.

And spirits could be summoned. At this point in his contemplations – they hadn't been too long ago, just before he'd come up with the idea of amplifying his power – at this point, he had tried to think of ways to reach out to himself…

And then had almost banged his head onto his desk. How was he supposed to reach _out_ if he was _inside_ himself?

'Summoning means calling forth a being from another plane or place and drawing it to yourself.'

It had been a phase, a passing fancy he had indulged in a couple of centuries ago, even going as far as travelling to Ktahal and listening to what madmen and geniuses – and who could tell the difference? – there had to say about this art.

One of them had passed himself of as a teacher rather than a member of some secret society or another, his manner not really different from Kurama's primary school teacher, now that he came to think of it. He'd explained the basics mostly and these in great detail, and Kurama had been bored out of his mind half the time, but every now and then Susumu – yes, that was his name – had parted with a little gem of knowledge that Kurama had been sure would be helpful.

Granted the repetition of such elementary information had grated on his nerves then and he'd let his mind drift from time to time…

Perhaps he shouldn't have, for then he wouldn't have wasted time thinking about ways to

summon himself. Hiei would really get a kick out of this and consequently he wouldn't tell him about it.

"I know enough. Ktahal is an interesting place, don't you think?"

If by interesting one meant dangerous and populated by the world's greatest lunatics.

"I think that you don't know what you're getting yourself into."

A last ditch attempt at keeping him away from what was supposedly Hiei's business alone, but there were other ways to interpret this (if one really wanted to).

"You worry about me?"

How sweet – and totally off the mark, naturally, but it made Hiei's eyebrow twitch.

"I need you alive for the tournament - and you have a penchant for finding yourself in _interesting_ circumstances."

So, Hiei did know _that_ definition of 'interesting'; and he also saw the point of keeping your teammates alive, though Kurama did not really appreciate the insinuation that he was unable to keep himself in that state.

"One of my better qualities, I believe."

'Interesting' could, of course, always mean just that.

"I won't have you meddling. I won't have you hurting," Hiei waved a hand again and Kurama almost expected the slice of bread to be flung across the room, but by now Hiei did seem to have gained enough control over his motor functions to avoid any further embarrassments. The food and the draught he had provided had certainly helped the fire demon regain a bit of strength.

"Do as you wish," Hiei continued magnanimously, as if he had any say, "what you do with yourself beyond this is no concern of mine."

Leave it up to Hiei to hide behind a mask of arrogance, when it was so very clear that, driven into a corner, he had backed down before rational arguments. That wasn't shameful; the opposite held true, in fact. Only a fool would pursue his goals alone, when he obviously couldn't achieve them by himself.

Then again, Hiei had been uncomfortable – hah, understatement of the year and he wasn't

even British – and trying to save face throughout their conversation. Perhaps, he should leave him with a small feeling of victory. Hiei might feel more inclined to share information that way.

"I shall."

A brief flicker of surprise passed over Hiei's face – hadn't expected that, had he? – before his expression settled on satisfaction. He quickly finished eating, then got up gingerly and looked around, the desire to leave clear.

Kurama pointed to his wardrobe – the coat was still inside – and watched as Hiei got it out and proceeded to rummage for a while. Looking for his boots perhaps, but he hadn't had them on, when he'd come last night and, as Kurama heard him curse silently, it seemed Hiei realised this, too.

Leaving the wardrobe – and his clothes, as well, Kurama did not want to imagine the mess Hiei had made, he'd see it soon enough – alone, he slouched over to the bed, opening the window above it. He paused a moment in the frame, a contemplative look on his face.

"Human, spirit, half breed... You're a very odd creature, whatever your nature."

Then he was gone.

-

**Author's note the second:**

**-**

**Viridian Magpie**

**-**

**Incubus** – a male demon that goes after women. The Incubus will lie down on the victim's body, while they are asleep and drain their energy, usually by planting sexual fantasies in their minds. The "correct" demon in Ryou's case would be the Succubus, of course, since that one is female and goes after men. Still, Bakura is male (and would most certainly protest being compared to a she-demon).

"**ariston metron"** (moderation is best) – attributed to, among others, Cleobulus/Kleobulos, one of the Seven Sages.

**-**

**ego**

**-**

No Dragon / Rastaltan point-of-view this time around, but Hiei was hideously tiring. One apologizes for the narration and flashbacks that droned on and on and on, for the majority are unfortunately necessary.

Rastaltan remains as he is, and we have taken a number of liberties with Hiei's Jagan, by making it a double-way transmitter between the dragon and his master. While not stated in canon, self stands by the theory. Similarly, the possibility of Hiei's brief messenger enterprises in his early, not-powerful-enough-to-pose-too-much-a-threat days is one self is willing to contemplate and exploit. Canon doesn't state otherwise, and one will cling to that desperately.

There is a Mutant Ninja Turtles reference up there. Forgive self, for self is weak and giggly.


End file.
